this commentary on the editorial ‘the politics and analytics of health policy’ by professor calum paton focuses on two issues. first, it points to the unclear links between ideas, ideology, values, and discourse and policy, and warns that discourse is often a poor guide to enacted policy. second, it suggests that realism, particularly ‘programme theory’ are useful tools for health policy analys...

Maternal health is a major health priority for international agencies and the Ethiopian Government. Many low income countries including Ethiopia, made substantial improvements in maternal health achieving the Millennium Development Goal -5. According to World Health Organization estimation, maternal death decreased almost by half in the last 15 years globally (2). The last five demographic heal...

This case study has used the results of a review of literature to understand the persistence of poor maternal health in Rajasthan, a large state of north India, and to make some conclusions on reasons for the same. The rate of reduction in Rajasthan's maternal mortality ratio (MMR) has been slow, and it has remained at 445 per 1000 livebirths in 2003. The government system provides the bulk of ...

BACKGROUND Approximately 800 women die of pregnancy-related complications every day. Over half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Most maternal deaths can be prevented with high quality maternal health services. It is well established that use of maternal health services vary by place of residence and socioeconomic status (SES), but few studies have examined the determinants of ...

martin powell suggests that the death of the english national health service (nhs) has been announced so many times we are at risk of not noticing should it actually happen. he is right. if we ‘cry wolf’ too many times, we risk losing sight of what is important about the nhs and why.

Addressing efforts towards the improvement of maternal and child health management can often prove to be problematic in context to successfully obtaining healthcare and medical treatment information from health care professionals. In this regard, the authors propose an adaptive multi-service system that contains fully integrated health care services, medical treatment services, and maternal and...

For decades, the primary health care paradigm with a focus on maternal and child health programs has been driving funding for health in developing countries [1]. This has led to improvements, although there are doubts that many countries will meet the ambitious Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 of reducing maternal and childhood mortality by three-quarters and two-thirds, respectively, betwe...

This study aims to determine means of strengthening the health system to accelerate achievement of MDGs 4 and 5 in the Volta Region of Ghana, with a particular emphasis in the Ketu South and Keta municipalities. Secondary data have been used in this study. High maternal and infant mortality is a crucial issue in Ghana. Maternal and infant mortality is high in rural area compared to urban area d...

Alicia Yamin argues that applying human rights frameworks and approaches to maternal health offers strategies and tools to address the root causes of maternal morbidity and mortality within and beyond health systems, in addition to addressing other violations of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.

BACKGROUND Pakistan's Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Program is faced with multiple challenges in service delivery, financial and logistic management, training and deployment of human resources, and integration within the existing health system. There is a lack of evidence on managerial aspects of the MNCH program management and implementation. METHODS AND FINDINGS This study used ...