IDEAS aims to improve the health and survival of mothers and babies through generating evidence to inform policy and practice.

Journal article

More efforts needed to reach poor and rural women with maternal health services in Ethiopia

Alem Desta Wuneh, a PhD student with the Dagu project, published this paper in the International Journal for Equity in Health. This study used...

Journal article

Understanding mistreatment during institutional delivery in Northeast Nigeria

There is growing evidence from Nigeria and around the world that women who deliver their babies in health facilities can experience mistreatment. In our study, we describe how frequently this happens in Gombe state,
north-eastern Nigeria, and what type of mistreatments women experience. Using a questionnaire, we...

Nigeria Understanding quality improvement Evidence for policy and practice Research findings

Journal article

Geographic differences in maternal and child health care utilisation in four Ethiopian regions

Atkure Defar, Dagu project lead at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute and a PhD student supported through the project and his co-authors, published this paper in the International Journal for Equity in Health. The authors employed a cross-sectional community-based study with two-stage stratified cluster sampling in...

Ethiopia Tracking progress Evidence for policy and practice Research findings

Journal article

Maternal and newborn health improves in rural Nigeria, Ethiopia and India but inequities still exist

“Our findings have a both optimistic and pessimistic interpretation, in that families from all socioeconomic status groups benefited, but inequities have also persisted,” writes Dr. Tanya Marchant with coauthors. Underlying inequities in these rural settings mean that more work is needed to reach the poorest...

Ethiopia General India Nigeria Improving coverage measurement Tracking progress Evidence for policy and practice Intervention coverage Research findings

Blog Post

“I felt like I should have delivered at home”

The Northeast of Nigeria has some of the highest rates of maternal and newborn deaths in the world. Drastically reducing this number of preventable deaths is therefore seen as a top priority for the health sector. Evidence from around the world has shown that encouraging mothers to deliver their babies in a health...