Maternal Health Service Delivery Assessment

To guide our study, we developed an analytic framework adapted from Singh et al.’s [14 (link)] health systems and policy assessment framework that conceptualizes the World Health Organization (WHO) health systems building blocks and a country’s legislative framework for maternal health as inputs to the provision and utilization of maternal health services, the effective and equitable coverage of services along the continuum of care, and ultimately, maternal mortality (Figure 1). Given data availability and the many factors influencing effective and equitable coverage of interventions and maternal mortality, we focused on the relationship between policies and related implementation structures (e.g. coordination, clinical guidelines, reporting systems) for maternal health and utilization of key services in various countries: antenatal care (ANC), institutional delivery, and postnatal care (PNC) for the mother.