Article
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Changes in Inequality in Utilization of Maternal Health Care: Evidence from Skilled Birth Attendance in Mauritania for the Period 2007-2015
Version 1
: Received: 21 November 2021 / Approved: 24 November 2021 / Online: 24 November 2021 (08:20:28 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Taleb El Hassen, M.V.; Cabases, J.M.; Zine Eddine El Idrissi, M.D.; Mills, S. Changes in Inequality in Use of Maternal Health Care Services: Evidence from Skilled Birth Attendance in Mauritania for the Period 2007–2015. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3566. Taleb El Hassen, M.V.; Cabases, J.M.; Zine Eddine El Idrissi, M.D.; Mills, S. Changes in Inequality in Use of Maternal Health Care Services: Evidence from Skilled Birth Attendance in Mauritania for the Period 2007–2015. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3566.
Journal reference: Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3566
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19063566
Abstract
Background: The presence of a skilled health professional at delivery is critical to reduce infant and maternal mortality. Health development plans and strategies, especially in developing countries, consider equity in access to maternal health care services as a priority. This study aimed to measure and analyze the inequality in the use of skilled births attendance services in Mauritania. The study identifies the inequality determinants and to explore its changes over the period 2007–2015. Methods: The concentration curve, concentration index, decomposition of the concentration index and Oaxaca-type decomposition technique were performed to measure socio-economics related inequalities in skilled birth attendance services utilization and identify contribution of different determinants to such inequality as well as the changes in inequality overtime using data from Mauritania Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) 2007, 2011 and 2015. Results: The concentration index for skilled birth attendance services utilization dropped from 0.6324 [P < 0.001] in 2007 to 0.5852 [P < 0.001] in 2015. Prenatal care, household wealth Status and urban-rural location made the biggest contributions to socio-economic related inequalities. Decomposition of the concentration index and Oaxaca-type decomposition revealed changes prenatal care, rural-urban location made positive contributions to decline in inequality. However, alternation in household wealth score, woman’s age, her education level and the number of living children pushed the equality toward deterioration. Conclusion: Clearly, the pro-rich inequality in skilled birth attendance is high in Mauritania despite a slight decrease during the study period. Policy actions on eliminating urban-rural and wealth index disparity should target increase access to skilled birth attendance. Multisectoral Policy actions is needed to improve social determinants of health and to remove health system bottlenecks including socio-economic empowerment of women and girls, enhancing availability and affordability of Reproductive and Maternal Health commodities, improving availability of obstetrical providers in rural area, promoting a better distribution and quality of health infrastructure particularly health posts and health centers, and replacing user fees by an equitable, efficient and sustainable financing scheme under an universal health coverage vision.
Keywords
Skilled birth attendance; Inequality; Concentration curve; Concentration index; Oaxaca decomposition; Mauritania
Subject
SOCIAL SCIENCES, Economics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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