BACKGROUND This study used data from recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to examine the impact of short or long preceding birth intervals on neonatal and under-five mortality. In order to minimize the effect of selection issues, we examined child mortality outcomes of the same mother, comparing short or long interval births against births with what had previously been considered optimal...

BACKGROUND Declining rates of fertility and mortality are driving demographic transition in all regions of the world, leading to global population ageing and consequently changing patterns of global morbidity and mortality. Understanding sex-related health differences, recognising groups at risk of poor health and identifying determinants of poor health are therefore very important for both imp...

To assess social inequalities in the use of antenatal care (ANC), facility based delivery (FBD), and modern contraception (MC) in two contrasting groups of countries in sub-Saharan Africa divided based on their progress towards maternal mortality reduction. Six countries were included in this study. Three countries (Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Uganda) had <350 MMR in 2010 with >4.5% average annua...

INTRODUCTION Child undernutrition is a major risk factor for child mortality and adult ill-health. Despite substantial progress in most health indicators, undernutrition remains high in Sri Lanka, with recent trends being unclear, owing to methodological differences in national surveys. METHODS This study uses data from the 1987, 1993, 2000 and 2006-07 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and...

Cultural evolutionists have long been interested in the problem of why fertility declines as populations develop. By outlining plausible mechanistic links between individual decision-making, information flow in populations and competition between groups, models of cultural evolution offer a novel and powerful approach for integrating multiple levels of explanation of fertility transitions. Howe...

The study examined the trend in contraceptive use among sexually active women of reproductive age in Ghana. The study also investigated the socioeconomic determinants of contraceptive use. Cross tabulations and logistic regression analyses were performed on data from the Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys 1988 2008. The results indicate low contraceptive use among women with marked variation ...

STUDY QUESTION What is the contribution of the underuse of modern methods (MM) of contraception to the annual undesired pregnancies in 35 low- and middle-income countries? SUMMARY ANSWER Fifteen million out of 16.7 million undesired pregnancies occurring annually in 35 countries could have been prevented with the optimal use of MM of contraception. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Every year, 87 milli...

BACKGROUND Currently, family planning metrics derived from nationally-representative household surveys such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) categorise women into those desiring to space or limit (permanently stop) births, or according to their age in the case of young women. This conceptualisation potentially ignores a large and growing group of young women who desire to delay a fir...

BACKGROUND A large literature has indicated a robust association between birth spacing and child survival, but evidence on the association of birth timing with physical growth in low and middle income countries (LMICs) remains limited. METHODS AND RESULTS Data from 153 cross-sectional Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) across 61 LMICs conducted between 1990 and 2011 were combined to assess ...

Compared with Europe and North America, few African countries have consistently undertaken health and standard of living surveys that collect information ranging from socioeconomic status (SES) to self-reported morbidity. Because of the lack of these data, a detailed picture of the nature and magnitude of inequalities in health is lacking. Data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and cens...