Increasing Women's Access to Skilled Pregnancy Care to Reduce Maternal Mortality in Nigeria

Summary

Background: Nigeria has the second highest absolute number of maternal deaths and perinatal deaths in the world. The country contributes 14% of all maternal deaths worldwide, second only to India. Although all parts of the country are affected, most maternal, and perinatal deaths occur in the northeast and northwest geo-political zones, where women have limited access to evidence-based maternal and newborn health services. Affected women and families are mainly those who have little or no formal education, who are poor and marginalized, and who live in rural and sub-urban communities.

Problem: Research carried out in various regions of Nigeria has shown that insufficient access to pregnancy health services is a major factor that places women at high risk of adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes. Maternal care provided within Nigeria's numerous local Primary Health Centres (PHCs) is an efficient and practical avenue for reaching vulnerable women and their newborn infants, and PHC use is strongly encouraged by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health.

Research Question and Objective: The key research question and objectives are as follows: 1) To determine the main factors that prevent vulnerable women from using PHCs or receiving maternal and neonatal care therein; 2) To identify effective community level interventions for improving women's access to maternal health services, as a means to reduce maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality in Nigeria.

Methodology: This study will complete a community-based, multi-site project using a mixed methods approach. The project will be done in three sequential phases: A data gathering phase (Phase 1), an intervention phase (Phase 2), and the implementation of the findings (Phase 3). The study will be conducted over 54-months in six communities, and another six communities of similar status will serve as control sites. During Phases 1-3, surveys about maternal health services utilization will be carried out at baseline, midterm and completion points of the project.

Potential Impact: Increasing women's access to evidence-based maternity care is likely a direct way to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Nigeria. The proposed project will determine how we can effectively increase access to PHCs, and then bring those findings into a policy and program format that can be applied across the country.

Conditions

• Antenatal Care and Delivery

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Incentives

1\) provision of incentives to encourage women to attend primary health care and use family planning, antenatal, delivery and postnatal services; 2) conditional cash transfers to promote uptake of services; 3) targeted community health education and advocacy activities; 4) community maternal audit/accountability activities, with community-led activities aimed at promoting utilization of services

BEHAVIORAL

Community

1\) outreach services by PHCs; 6) PHC strengthening including training of health providers; and 2) training and kitting of community health rangers who will be trained to follow up women at home to ensure that they do not default but that they continue to use PHC services until delivery.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Ottawa

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-01-31

Primary Completion

2020-01-31

Completion

2021-01-31