Maternal and Child Health
The reduction of maternal and under-five mortality is among the most pressing of global health priorities. Pre-term birth, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and other health challenges result in almost 6 million deaths per year for children under age five, most of them preventable.
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To learn how this work is continuing after the MEASURE Evaluation project, please visit Data for Impact and PMI Measure Malaria. |
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To address this issue, MEASURE Evaluation, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), enabled countries to use appropriate methods of estimating maternal mortality at national and subnational levels. This is a key step in helping countries prevent maternal deaths because understanding the magnitude of the problem and the main causes of death leads to more effective interventions. MEASURE Evaluation undertook studies to evaluate subnational-level differences in maternal mortality and newborn health interventions. Many countries lack complete vital statistics registration systems, meaning that not all births and deaths are recorded, and cause of death can be difficult to obtain because many occur outside clinical settings.While most pregnancies proceed normally, complications can arise suddenly and be fatal if not promptly treated. Recent estimates indicate that there are 295,000 maternal deaths per year. What is most tragic is that a majority of maternal and under-five deaths could be prevented with interventions and treatments already available. Moreover, high numbers of maternal and under-five deaths are a clear indication that many women and newborns are not receiving the basic health services that they need.
MEASURE Evaluation held workshops with participants from statistics offices in country ministries of health, and with international organizations on estimating maternal mortality from census data, and contributes to the literature demonstrating the use of the census approach. MEASURE Evaluation also developed tools, such as the Post-Census Verbal Autopsy Guide, that allow countries to obtain cause of maternal death information. MEASURE Evaluation used mapping to enable countries to understand variations in maternal and newborn mortality, cause of death, and service availability at subnational levels. Such information can help program planners and policymakers better target services.
Other key areas of focus were:
- Capacity building for development and application of tools and methods, data use, and data dissemination on registration systems and mortality estimations.
- Support for a USAID key goal: ending preventable child and maternal death.
- MEASURE Evaluation collaborated with several organizations on a supplement regarding maternal and newborn health, which was published through the Journal of Global Health.
- MEASURE Evaluation provided technical input to ongoing initiatives to improve the measurement of maternal and child health, including the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP).
