Sub-Saharan African (SSA) population consists of about 45% children, while in Europe and North America children population is 10-15%. Lately, attention has been directed at mitigating childhood infectious and communicable diseases to reduce under-five mortality. As the under-five mortality index in Sub-Saharan Africa has relatively improved over the last two decades, more Sub-Saharan African ch...

BACKGROUND In the last two decades, all countries in Europe have embarked on substantial health reforms, introducing new models of financing and provision of health services. Using Bulgaria as a case study, this article examines the impact of the reforms on child health services. METHODS This is the first of a series of papers drawing on a broader research on inequalities in access to child h...

BACKGROUND The Philippines failed to achieve its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) commitment to reduce maternal deaths by three quarters. This, together with the recently launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reinforces the need for the country to keep up in improving reach of maternal and child health (MCH) services. Inequitable use of health services is a risk factor for the differe...

I read the paper by Bhutta et al.1 published in the Bulletin with great interest and I congratulate the authors. Maternal and child health is a significant problem in developing countries. Factors such as poverty; cultural factors which restrict women’s autonomy, promote early marriage or support harmful traditional practices; nutritional deficiencies; reproductive factors like young age of mot...

BACKGROUND Engaging community health volunteers and community health workers to provide maternal and child health (MCH) care services in resource-poor settings is one of the global and widely used concepts. Despite a great role of female community health volunteers (FCHVs) in MCH services in Nepal, few research studies have been performed in this area. Our research aimed to assess the knowledge...

BACKGROUND Addressing inequitable coverage of maternal and child health care services among different socioeconomic strata of population and across states is an important part of India's contemporary health program. This has wide implications for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal targets. OBJECTIVE This paper assesses the inequity in coverage of maternal, newborn, and child h...

The Court report in 1976 laid down the classic blueprint for the organisation of children's mental health services.' Since then the priorities of health and other services have changed.2 Social services in some parts of the country have had to redirect social workers from child guidance to child protection work, often because of the major increase in reporting of child sexual abuse, and now als...

OBJECTIVE Children with special health care needs are known to be at increased risk of all forms of child maltreatment when compared to children without such needs. We describe a health care team's experience providing medical evaluations for suspected child maltreatment to children with special health care needs. METHOD Consecutive cases seen as outpatients in the Abuse Referral Clinic for C...

With suicide being the third leading cause of death among young people, early identification of risk is critical, particularly for those involved with the juvenile courts. In this study of court-involved youth (N = 433) in two Midwest counties, logistic regression analysis identified some expected and unexpected findings of important demographic, educational, mental health, child welfare, and j...

BACKGROUND A measure of the proportion of deliveries assisted by skilled attendants is one of the indicators of progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, which aims at improving maternal health. This study aimed at establishing delivery practices and associated factors among mothers seeking child welfare services at selected health facilities in Nyandarua South district, K...