 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Ernest Dabiré, Département de médecine sociale et préventive, Faculté de médecine, University of Montreal, 2-2815, Barclay Avenue, Montréal, QC H3S 1J7, Canada, 514-343-3775, ernest.dabire@umontreal.ca and Pierre Fournier, Département de médecine sociale et préventive, University of Montréal, CP 6128 succursale Centre Ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada.
PURPOSE: Public health decisions are made on the available evidence. Prenatal care is an important component of safe motherhood strategy. It is advocated as a means to reduce maternal and child death rates. Different measures are used for current studies and program monitoring, but existing debates remain on what to measure and how to measure prenatal care utilization. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze prenatal care utilization indicators, to discuss the meanings of those measures and to indicate their implications in terms of decisions in developing countries using data from Burkina Faso. DATA/INFORMATION: This study presents prenatal care utilization measures currently used in research and program monitoring. Burkina Faso DHS data (1998) are used to illustrate the levels of prenatal care utilization according to different types of measure. METHOD: Using characteristics of prenatal care, we construct four types of measures: first use, continuity, adequacy and completeness and conduct descriptive analyses. RESULTS: The utilization rates vary from 95.2% (first use rate) to 28.0% (completeness rate) and from 58.9% (first use rate) to 8.5% (completeness rate) respectively in urban and rural areas. Findings show that prenatal care utilization have totally different profile in urban and rural areas. IMPLICATIONS: The type of measure used and the findings associated to them affect operational decisions and public health policy. The discussion underlines different utilization rates varying among reproductive age women (15-49 years) of urban and rural areas. The conclusion addresses recommendations to better understand outcome measures and to appropriately identify corresponding interventions.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Prenatal Care, Access and Services
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.