Background Following the adoption of the Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) in Ghana to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, efforts were made towards its attainment. However, impacts and challenges of implemented intervention programs have not been examined to inform implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 (SDG 3.2) that seeks to end preventable deaths...

Few, if any, previous studies of the determinants of literacy and numeracy in Ghana and elsewhere have examined the impact of education reform on literacy and numeracy production and have mostly also been limited to considering the proficiency in only one language and numeracy and to considering only skills impacts from more traditional types of education. Examining the impact of traditional sc...

Although the high prevalence of blood-borne viral infections and syphilis in correctional facilities has been well documented globally, such data are sparse from Africa, and there has been no such data from Ghana. This study sought to estimate the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and syphilis among prison inmates and officers at ...

Traditional and cultural values, social perceptions, religious teachings and criminalisation have facilitated stigmatisation of abortion in Ghana. Abortion is illegal in Ghana except in three instances. Though the law allows for performance of abortion in three circumstances, the Ghana reproductive health service policy did not have any induced legal abortion services component to cover the thr...

BACKGROUND Health outcomes in developing countries continue to lag the developed world, and many countries are not on target to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The private health sector provides much of the care in many developing countries (e.g., approximately 50 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa), but private providers are often poorly integrated into the health system. Efforts to improve ...

How did living standards in Ghana develop in the long run? The obvious constraint for a long-term perspective is the limited amount of good data and a consistent measure of human well-being. This is especially the case for the period of colonial rule. Using anthropometric techniques we explore the evolution of living standards and regional inequality in Ghana from 1880 to 2000. Ghana provides a...

Context In 1969, Ghana became one of the first African countries to adopt a population p o l i c y. Acceptance of family planning was s l o w, however, and 20 years later, in 1988, the prevalence of modern contraceptive use had reached only 5%. Between 1988 and 1998, though, the use of modern contraceptive methods nearly tripled, fro m 5% to 13%. At the same time, the total fertility rate dropp...

BACKGROUND Rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are impending major threats to the health of African populations, but the extent to which they differ between rural and urban settings in Africa and upon migration to Europe is unknown. We assessed the burden of obesity and T2D among Ghanaians living in rural and urban Ghana and Ghanaian migrants living in different European countries...

Traditional medicine has been practised in Ghana for centuries with the majority of Ghanaians still patronising the services of traditional healers. Throughout Africa a large number of people use pangolins as a source of traditional medicine, however, there is a dearth of information on the use of animals in folk medicine in Ghana, in particular the use of pangolins. The aim of this study was t...

background: for over 2 decades, ghana’s ministry of health (moh) has been resolved to continuously improve the quality of healthcare in a cost-effective manner. strategies have been adopted to enhance client satisfaction with healthcare services and delivery.objective: the current study examined patient satisfaction with the quality of healthcare in ghana by comparing healthcare services at the...