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May 08, 2021

Cesar Victora named winner of 2021 Richard Doll Prize in Epidemiology

Cesar Victora, scientific diretor of International Center for Equity in Health, has been named the winner of the 2021 Richard Doll Prize in Epidemiology. The Richard Doll Prize is awarded by IEA to celebrate William Richard Shaboe Doll’s legacy. His works were pioneer and extremely valuable for epidemological research, for unequivocally establishing the link between tobacco and various health issues, such as vascular diseases and cancers.

April 20, 2021

New and updated Equity Profiles for 7 countries are now available!

Equity Profiles of six countries were updated this week: the 2018 profiles of Costa Rica, Guinea-Bissau, North Macedonia; the 2019 profiles of Serbia, Thailand and Turkmenistan; and the first Equity Profile of Tonga, 2019, are now available. All data comes from the MICS - Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. Among the results, it is worth highlighting North Macedonia and Serbia, which continue to present very low estimates for Demand for Family Planning Satisfied with Modern Methods. E

April 19, 2021

Inequalities in antenatal care coverage and quality: an analysis from 63 low and middle-income countries using the ANCq content-qualified coverage indicator

Antenatal care (ANC) is an essential intervention associated with a reduction of maternal and new-born morbidity and mortality. However, evidence suggested substantial inequalities in maternal and child health, mainly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conducted a global analysis of socioeconomic inequalities in ANC using national surveys from 63 LMICs. ANC was measured using the ANCq, a novel content-qualified ANC coverage indicator, created and validated using national surveys,

March 16, 2021

Complementary feeding practices in 80 low- and middle-income countries: prevalence and socioeconomic inequalities in dietary diversity, meal frequency and dietary adequacy

Adequate complementary feeding practices in early childhood contribute to better food preferences and health outcomes throughout the life course. We analyzed the most recent national survey carried out since 2010 in 80 LMIC to describe patterns and socioeconomic inequalities in complementary feeding practices – minimum dietary diversity (MDD), minimum meal frequency (MMF), and minimum acceptable diet (MAD) – among children aged 6-23 months. Between- and within-country inequalit

March 15, 2021

Planning for work: Exploring the relationship between contraceptive use and women?s sector-specific employment in India

India has a unique, sterilization-skewed contraceptive method mix, low and stagnant female labor force participation and widespread gender inequalities. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between contraceptive use and women’s employment (none, professional, clerical or sales, agricultural, services or production) in India using data from India’s 2015–16 National Family Health Survey. More than three-quarters of women in this sample were current contrace

March 09, 2021

A new content-qualified antenatal care coverage indicator: Development and validation of a score using national health surveys in low- and middle-income countries

Good quality antenatal care (ANC) helps reduce adverse maternal and newborn outcomes, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Most of the currently used ANC indicators only measure contact with services. We used data from national surveys conducted in LMICs to create and validate a new ANC indicator, applicable to all women in need of ANC measured as a score, considering ANC contact and content. We selected ANC related variables from national health surveys to build a score.

March 05, 2021

Zero-dose children and the immunisation cascade: understanding immunisation pathways in low and middle-income countries

While the global immunization coverage, estimated as the proportion of world’s children who received all doses of the basic vaccines (BCG, polio, DPT, and measles), has remained stable at 85% since 2010, there were about 13.5 million children under one year of age who did not receive those vaccines in 2018. We explored the magnitude of inequality in the immunization cascade in children aged 12-23 months according to the family’s socioeconomic position, the child’s sex, and p

March 03, 2021

Is womens empowerment associated with coverage of RMNCH interventions in low- and middle-income countries? An analysis using a survey-based empowerment indicator, the SWPER

Women’s empowerment has a strong potential to promote sustainable development. While reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) intervention coverage has substantial variability across social strata, the association with women’s empowerment is less understood. In this study, we used Demographic and Health Survey data from 62 low- and middle-income countries to evaluate the association between women’s empowerment and the Composite Coverage Index (CCI), a weighte