ReviewBMJ global health2019
'Who assisted with the delivery of (NAME)?' Issues in estimating skilled birth attendant coverage through population-based surveys and implications for improving global tracking.
Review in BMJ global health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal health service utilization and birth outcomes among female sex workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Nigeria: results from a cross-sectional survey.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Prevalence and correlates of cesarean section delivery and physician attendance during cesarean section in Bangladesh: evidence from nationally representative data 2017-18.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Prevalence of essential newborn care in home and facility births in the Peruvian Amazon: analysis of census data from programme evaluation in three remote districts of the Loreto region.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2023Article
- Trends in birth attendants in Sudan using three consecutive household surveys (from 2006 to 2014).Frontiers in global women's health · 2023Article
- Measuring the quality of antenatal care in a context of high utilisation: evidence from Telangana, India.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Article
- The Effect of Healthcare Worker Density on Maternal Health Service Utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2022Article
- An insight into two decades of Skilled Birth Attendants in Nepal.Frontiers in global women's health · 2022Article
- Are midwives ready to provide quality evidence-based care after pre-service training? Curricula assessment in four countries-Benin, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- A mixed methods evaluation of Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO) and Basic Life Support in Obstetrics (BLSO) in a resource-limited setting on the Thailand-Myanmar border.Wellcome open research · 2021Article
- Article
- Spatial inequalities in skilled attendance at birth in Ghana: a multilevel analysis integrating health facility databases with household survey data.Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH · 2020Observational
- Do male engagement and couples' communication influence maternal health care-seeking? Findings from a household survey in Mozambique.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2020Article
- Childbirth care in Egypt: a repeat cross-sectional analysis using Demographic and Health Surveys between 1995 and 2014 examining use of care, provider mix and immediate postpartum care content.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2020Article
- What the percentage of births in facilities does not measure: readiness for emergency obstetric care and referral in Senegal.BMJ global health · 2020Article
- What is meant by validity in maternal and newborn health measurement? A conceptual framework for understanding indicator validation.PloS one · 2020Article
- Provision of postpartum care to women giving birth in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional study using Demographic and Health Survey data from 33 countries.PLoS medicine · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The percentage of live births attended by a skilled birth attendant (SBA) is a key global indicator and proxy for monitoring progress in maternal and newborn health. Yet, the discrepancy between rising SBA coverage and non-commensurate declines in maternal and neonatal mortality in many low-income and middle-income countries has brought increasing attention to the challenge of what the indicator of SBA coverage actually measures, and whether the indicator can be improved. In response to the 2018 revised definition of SBA and the push for improved measurement of progress in maternal and newborn health, this paper examines the evidence on what women can tell us about who assisted them during childbirth and methodological issues in estimating SBA coverage via population-based surveys. We present analyses based on Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys conducted since 2015 for 23 countries. Our findings show SBA coverage can be reasonably estimated from population-based surveys in settings of high coverage, though women have difficulty reporting specific cadres. We propose improvements in how skilled cadres are classified and documented, how linkages can be made to facility-based data to examine the enabling environment and further ways data can be disaggregated to understand the complexity of delivery care. We also reflect on the limitations of what SBA coverage reveals about the quality and circumstances of childbirth care. While improvements to the indicator are possible, we call for the use of multiple indicators to inform local efforts to improve the health of women and newborns.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.