Health Topics
- Extending Delivery of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention to Children Aged 5–10 Years in Chad: A Mixed-Methods Study
We sought to understand perceptions of the feasibility and acceptability of extending seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) to children aged 5–10 years and explore reasons why SMC is administered to children aged 5–10 years in the current program.
- Role of Information Sources in Vaccination Uptake: Insights From a Cross-Sectional Household Survey in Sierra Leone, 2019
Our findings suggest that health workers and faith leaders are important sources of information to deliver vaccination messages, given their strong association with vaccination confidence and uptake. In this context, vaccination promotion efforts that integrate faith leaders and health workers may help increase vaccination uptake.
- Key Factors Influencing Use of Immunization Cost Evidence in Country Planning and Budgeting Processes: Experiences From Indonesia, Tanzania, and Vietnam
The evidence to policy and practice facilitated process represents a journey that countries and their development partners can embark on to increase the likelihood that health policy makers will use cost evidence for policy making and planning.
- Global Research Priorities for Understanding and Improving Respectful Care for Newborns: A Modified Delphi Study
To inform the developing research field of respectful care, we identified global research questions that are specific to respectful newborn care. The top descriptive, implementation, and measurement questions focused primarily on defining, promoting, measuring, and advocating for respectful care.
- Health System Redesign to Shift to Hospital Delivery for Maternal and Newborn Survival: Feasibility Assessment in Kakamega County, Kenya
Service delivery redesign is needed to accelerate progress toward improved health outcomes. Kakamega County, Kenya, demonstrates that there is a strong base of health system assets that would serve as a starting point to successfully implement maternal and newborn health service delivery redesign.
- Mid-Upper Arm Circumference Tapes and Measurement Discrepancies: Time to Standardize Product Specifications and Reporting
Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is a widely used anthropometric measure to identify children with acute malnutrition. The use of different tapes of varied materials and thicknesses to measure MUAC has led to discrepancies. This indicates the need for global standardization of MUAC tape design.
- COVID-19 Partners Platform—Accelerating Response by Coordinating Plans, Needs, and Contributions During Public Health Emergencies: COVID-19 Vaccines Use Case
The World Health Organization COVID-19 Partners Platform represents the first step towards a new model of health crisis information sharing across stakeholders and could evolve into an engagement mechanism of choice for future cross-border public health emergencies.
- Household Survey Measurement of Newborn Postnatal Care: Coverage, Quality Gaps, and Internal Inconsistencies in Responses
Reliable measurement of postnatal content of care is currently lacking despite the critical importance of care in this vulnerable period. We found that there is a large quality-coverage gap with missed opportunities for quality care as well as internal inconsistencies in responses to newborn questions.
- Projecting the Impact of Nutrition Policy to Improve Child Stunting: A Case Study in Guatemala Using the Lives Saved Tool
We projected the impact of a Scaling Up Nutrition intervention policy, the Great Crusade, and found that increasing intervention coverage is unlikely to improve child stunting outcomes in Guatemala to meet Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
- Impact of Solar Light and Electricity on the Quality and Timeliness of Maternity Care: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster-Randomized Trial in Uganda
Lack of access to reliable energy is a major neglected health system challenge to maternal and child health. We found that installing a solar energy system intervention in rural Ugandan maternity facilities led to modest increases in the quality of maternity care and reductions in delays in care.