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  • 1471_2458_12_991

    Rights statement: © 2012 Gething et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Geographical access to care at birth in Ghana: a barrier to safe motherhood

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Published
  • Peter W. Gething
  • Fiifi Amoako Johnson
  • Faustina Frempong-Ainguah
  • Philomena Nyakro
  • Angela Baschieri
  • Patrick Aboagye
  • Jane Falkingham
  • Zoe Matthews
  • Peter M. Atkinson
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Article number991
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>16/11/2012
<mark>Journal</mark>BMC Public Health
Volume12
Number of pages13
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Background

Appropriate facility-based care at birth is a key determinant of safe motherhood but geographical access remains poor in many high burden regions. Despite its importance, geographical access is rarely audited systematically, preventing integration in national-level maternal health system assessment and planning. In this study, we develop a uniquely detailed set of spatially-linked data and a calibrated geospatial model to undertake a national-scale audit of geographical access to maternity care at birth in Ghana, a high-burden country typical of many in sub-Saharan Africa.

Methods

We assembled detailed spatial data on the population, health facilities, and landscape features influencing journeys. These were used in a geospatial model to estimate journey-time for all women of childbearing age (WoCBA) to their nearest health facility offering differing levels of care at birth, taking into account different transport types and availability. We calibrated the model using data on actual journeys made by women seeking care.

Results

We found that a third of women (34%) in Ghana live beyond the clinically significant two-hour threshold from facilities likely to offer emergency obstetric and neonatal care (EmONC) classed at the ‘partial’ standard or better. Nearly half (45%) live that distance or further from ‘comprehensive’ EmONC facilities, offering life-saving blood transfusion and surgery. In the most remote regions these figures rose to 63% and 81%, respectively. Poor levels of access were found in many regions that meet international targets based on facilities-per-capita ratios.

Conclusions

Detailed data assembly combined with geospatial modelling can provide nation-wide audits of geographical access to care at birth to support systemic maternal health planning, human resource deployment, and strategic targeting. Current international benchmarks of maternal health care provision are inadequate for these purposes because they fail to take account of the location and accessibility of services relative to the women they serve.

Bibliographic note

© 2012 Gething et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.