ArticleThe Lancet. Global health2024
The costs and benefits of scaling up interventions to prevent poor birth outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study.
Article in The Lancet. Global health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Artificial intelligence-powered models in predicting mortality in maternal, newborn, and children under five: a systematic review protocol.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- The burden of thyroid cancer and its association with national development levels in Asia: evidence from 47 countries (1990-2021).Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWe estimated the benefits and costs of a set of preventive interventions that could be delivered during antenatal care to prevent poor birth outcomes, including small-for-gestational-age and preterm births. We built on the assumptions and analyses underlying the Lancet Series on small vulnerable newborns (SVNs) and extended that work by incorporating more recent data, focusing only on the subset of preventive interventions, and examining a broader range of effects. A primary aim of the study was to provide a framework that decision makers could use to design programmes for women and children.
methodsThe analyses used the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) to estimate the effects and costs of scaling up the 11 preventive interventions identified in the SVN Series to improve birth outcomes. We used LiST estimates of effects and costs to estimate benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) for two intervention packages (one with interventions proven to improve birth outcomes and one with proven interventions plus interventions with potential to improve birth outcomes) and for the individual interventions in these packages for 80 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).
findingsBoth packages of interventions had BCRs more than 1, with a proven package BCR of 7·3 (IQR 5·3-9·1) and a proven plus potential package BCR of 5·8 (4·4-6·9). We found that in all cases the individual interventions had BCRs more than 1, there was a wide range of BCR values for the different interventions, and the BCR varied depending on package and country.
interpretationThe analyses presented in this Article provide evidence that there are preventive interventions that, if scaled up in LMICs, could have a large effect on child health and provide benefits that greatly exceed the costs.
fundingGlobal Affairs Canada.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.