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NAVRONGO HEALTH RESEARCH CENTRE A Field station of the Ministry of Health, Ghana (Member of the INDEPTH Network)
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Location
:Kassena-Nankana district
Coordinator :
Investigators :Dr. John E. Williams
Collaboration :
Funding :The World Bank
Period Covered:
Size :
PROJECT SUMMARY
The Maternal Health Study began in early September, 2005 with the overall goal of improving maternal health outcomes in northern Ghana as part of global efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goal five (reduction of maternal mortality by 75% from 1990 levels).
Specifically, the study aims at:
i. Assessing women’s use of health facilities for delivery following government’s introduction of free obstetric care in 2003.
ii. To assess out-of pocket expenditure for deliveries in 2004 and the effectiveness of government’s reimbursement policy
iii. To examine recent maternal deaths (January 2002 – December 2004) in order to elucidate the specific causes, timing and the individual, family, and service-related factors, which contributed to each maternal death.
The study is in four parts:
The first part is a household survey which was conducted among all the women in the district who delivered in 2004. Field workers were trained and deployed in the communities to administer questionnaires to the respondents asking them questions related to their pregnancy and delivery and expenses involved.
The second part is a verbal autopsy study. We extracted a list of all the women aged 12 to 49 who died between 2002 and 2004 from the NDSS database. Questionnaires were administered to spouses or close family relations of the deceased. Our interest is mainly in the maternal deaths among this group.
The third part is a health facility survey. This was aimed at finding out the state of key health facilities in the district as far as obstetric care is concerned. The facilities were assessed on their staff strengths, equipment availability and other issues.
The fourth aspect of the study, which was added on as an addendum, is a qualitative “Near Misses” study which began in March 2006. In-depth interviews will be conducted among women with near miss events who delivered at the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo in the period January-December 2005. Near miss events are complications that immediately threaten the woman’s survival but do not lead to her death.
It is expected that this study will provide a vivid illustration of the delays and barriers to the utilization of emergency obstetric care.
Data collection for all the arms of the study has been completed. The qualitative data is still being transcribed. This is however, expected to be completed in the near future. Analyses and report writing will soon begin. The reports are due to be submitted to the World Bank at the end of June, 2006. Dissemination of findings will take place later in the year.
Ethics approval has been obtained from
The NHRC-Institutional Review Board.
Person to whom correspondence should be addressed:
Dr. John E. Williams,
Navrongo Health Research Centre,
Ghana Health Service,
PO Box 114,
Navrongo, Ghana.
Phone: +233 742 22310, Fax: +233 742 22320