AbstractIncreasing women's knowledge about maternal health is an important step towards empowering them and making them aware of their rights and health status, allowing them to seek appropriate health care. In Yemen, the ongoing conflict has hampered the delivery of health information to women in public health facilities. This study examined rural women's knowledge of, and attitude towards, maternal and child health in Yemen and identified the factors associated with good maternal health knowledge. The study was conducted between August and November 2018. A sample of 400 women aged 15–49 years who had delivered in the 6 months prior to the survey were systematically selected from selected public health facilities in Abyan and Lahj. Women were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to gather data on their demographic and economic characteristics, obstetric history and responses to health knowledge and attitude questions. Women's knowledge level was assessed as poor or good using the mean score as a cut-off. Chi-squared test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to identify statistically significant factors associated with good maternal health knowledge. The percentage of women who had good knowledge was 44.8% (95% CI: 39.8–49.8). Women's attitude towards maternal health was negative in the areas of early ANC attendance, managing dietary regime and weight during pregnancy, facility delivery, PNC visits, cord care and mother and child health management. Women with primary education, whose husbands had received no formal education, who had their first ANC visit from the second trimester of pregnancy and who had fewer than four ANC visits were more likely to have poor health knowledge. Conversely, those with higher household income and only one child were more likely to have good maternal health knowledge. Overall, women's knowledge on maternal and child health care in rural areas of Yemen was low. Strategies are needed to increase rural women's knowledge on maternal and child health in this conflict-affected setting.
The war in Yemen, described as the world's 'worst humanitarian crisis,' has seen numerous attacks against health care. While global attention to attacks on health workers has increased significantly over the past decade, gaps in research on the lived experiences of frontline staff persist. This study draws on perspectives of frontline health workers in Yemen to understand the impact of the ongoing conflict on their personal and professional lives. Forty-three facility-based health worker interviews, and 6 focus group discussions with community-based health workers and midwives were conducted in Sana'a, Aden and Taiz governorates at the peak of the Yemen conflict. Data were analysed using content analysis methods. Findings highlight the extent and range of violence confronting health workers in Yemen as well as the coping strategies they use to attenuate the impact of acute and chronic stressors resulting from conflict. We find that the complex security situation – characterized by multiple parties to the conflict, politicization of humanitarian aid and constraints in humanitarian access – was coupled with everyday stressors that prevented health workers from carrying out their work. Participants reported sporadic attacks by armed civilians, tensions with patients, and harassment at checkpoints. Working conditions were dire, and participants reported chronic suspension of salaries as well as serious shortages of essential supplies and medicines. Themes specific to coping centered around fatalism and religious motivation, resourcefulness and innovation, and sense of duty and patriotism. Our findings demonstrate that health workers experience substantial stress and face various pressures while delivering lifesaving services in Yemen. While they exhibit considerable resilience and coping, they have needs that remain largely unaddressed. Accordingly, the humanitarian community should direct more attention to responding to the mental health and psychosocial needs of health workers, while actively working to ameliorate ...
Abstract Background Armed conflict, food insecurity, epidemic cholera, economic decline and deterioration of essential public services present overwhelming challenges to population health and well-being in Yemen. Although the majority of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance and civil servants in many areas have not received salaries since 2016, many healthcare providers continue to work, and families continue to need and seek care.
Methods This case study examines how reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N) services have been delivered since 2015, and identifies factors influencing implementation of these services in three governorates of Yemen. Content analysis methods were used to analyze publicly available documents and datasets published since 2000 as well as 94 semi-structured individual and group interviews conducted with government officials, humanitarian agency staff and facility-based healthcare providers and six focus group discussions conducted with community health midwives and volunteers in September–October 2018.
Results Humanitarian response efforts focus on maintaining basic services at functioning facilities, and deploying mobile clinics, outreach teams and community health volunteer networks to address urgent needs where access is possible. Attention to specific aspects of RMNCAH+N varies slightly by location, with differences driven by priorities of government authorities, levels of violence, humanitarian access and availability of qualified human resources. Health services for women and children are generally considered to be a priority; however, cholera control and treatment of acute malnutrition are given precedence over other services along the continuum of care. Although health workers display notable resilience working in difficult conditions, challenges resulting from insecurity, limited functionality of health facilities, and challenges in importation and distribution of supplies limit the availability and quality of services.
Conclusions Challenges to providing quality RMNCAH+N services in Yemen are formidable, given the nature and scale of humanitarian needs, lack of access due to insecurity, politicization of aid, weak health system capacity, costs of care seeking, and an ongoing cholera epidemic. Greater attention to availability, quality and coordination of RMNCAH services, coupled with investments in health workforce development and supply management are needed to maintain access to life-saving services and mitigate longer term impacts on maternal and child health and development. Lessons learned from Yemen on how to address ongoing primary health care needs during massive epidemics in conflict settings, particularly for women and children, will be important to support other countries faced with similar crises in the future.
BACKGROUND: Armed conflict, food insecurity, epidemic cholera, economic decline and deterioration of essential public services present overwhelming challenges to population health and well-being in Yemen. Although the majority of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance and civil servants in many areas have not received salaries since 2016, many healthcare providers continue to work, and families continue to need and seek care. METHODS: This case study examines how reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N) services have been delivered since 2015, and identifies factors influencing implementation of these services in three governorates of Yemen. Content analysis methods were used to analyze publicly available documents and datasets published since 2000 as well as 94 semi-structured individual and group interviews conducted with government officials, humanitarian agency staff and facility-based healthcare providers and six focus group discussions conducted with community health midwives and volunteers in September–October 2018. RESULTS: Humanitarian response efforts focus on maintaining basic services at functioning facilities, and deploying mobile clinics, outreach teams and community health volunteer networks to address urgent needs where access is possible. Attention to specific aspects of RMNCAH+N varies slightly by location, with differences driven by priorities of government authorities, levels of violence, humanitarian access and availability of qualified human resources. Health services for women and children are generally considered to be a priority; however, cholera control and treatment of acute malnutrition are given precedence over other services along the continuum of care. Although health workers display notable resilience working in difficult conditions, challenges resulting from insecurity, limited functionality of health facilities, and challenges in importation and distribution of supplies limit the availability and quality of services. ...
Abstract Introduction Widespread armed conflict has affected Yemen since 2014. To date, the mortality toll of seven years of crisis, and any excess due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are not well quantified. We attempted to estimate population mortality during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods in nine purposively selected urban and rural communities of southern and central Yemen (Aden and Ta'iz governorates), totalling > 100,000 people.
Methods Within each study site, we collected lists of decedents between January 2014–March 2021 by interviewing different categories of key community informants, including community leaders, imams, healthcare workers, senior citizens and others. After linking records across lists based on key variables, we applied two-, three- or four-list capture-recapture analysis to estimate total death tolls. We also computed death rates by combining these estimates with population denominators, themselves subject to estimation.
Results After interviewing 138 disproportionately (74.6%) male informants, we identified 2445 unique decedents. While informants recalled deaths throughout the study period, reported deaths among children were sparse: we thus restricted analysis to persons aged ≥ 15 years old. We noted a peak in reported deaths during May–July 2020, plausibly coinciding with the first COVID-19 wave. Death rate estimates featured uninformatively large confidence intervals, but appeared elevated compared to the non-crisis baseline, particularly in two sites where a large proportion of deaths were attributed to war injuries. There was no clear-cut evidence of excess mortality during the pandemic period.
Conclusions We found some evidence of a peak in mortality during the early phase of the pandemic, but death rate estimates were otherwise too imprecise to enable strong inference on trends. Estimates suggested substantial mortality elevations from baseline during the crisis period, but are subject to serious potential biases. The study highlighted challenges of data collection in this insecure, politically contested environment.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders. Data for this research was provided by MEASURE Evaluation, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of USAID, the US Government, or MEASURE Evaluation. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics granted the researchers access to relevant data in accordance with licence no. SLN2014-3-170, after subjecting data to processing aiming to preserve the confidentiality of individual data in accordance with the General Statistics Law-2000. The researchers are solely responsible for the conclusions and inferences drawn upon available data. ; Background Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. Methods The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systems, sample registration systems, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. Findings Globally, 18·7% (95% uncertainty interval 18·4–19·0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58·8% (58·2–59·3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48·1 years (46·5–49·6) to 70·5 years (70·1–70·8) for men and from 52·9 years (51·7–54·0) to 75·6 years (75·3–75·9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49·1 years (46·5–51·7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87·6 years (86·9–88·1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216·0 deaths (196·3–238·1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38·9 deaths (35·6–42·83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5·4 million (5·2–5·6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult males, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. Interpretation This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, women, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing. ; Research reported in this publication was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Melbourne, Public Health England, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (award P30AG047845), and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (award R01MH110163). ; Peer reviewed