This paper exploits a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of improvement in the quality of prenatal care and labor and delivery services on maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. Since basic medical care has been universally available in Ukraine, implementation of the Mother and Infant Health Project allows addressing quality rather than quantity effect of medical care. Employing program evaluation methods we find that the administrative units (rayons) participating in the Project have exhibited greater improvements in both maternal and infant health compared to the control rayons. Among the infant health characteristics, the MIHP impact is most pronounced for stillbirths, as well as infant mortality and morbidity resulted from deviations in perinatal period and congenital anomalies. As for the maternal health, the MIHP is most effective at combating such complications related blood circulation, veins, and urinary-genital systems, as well as late toxicosis and anemia. The analysis suggests that the effects are due to early attendance of antenatal clinics, lower share of C-sections, and greater share of normal deliveries. Preliminary cost-effectiveness analysis shows enormous benefit per dollar spent on the project: the cost to benefit ratio is one to 85 taking into account both maternal and infant lives saved as well as cost savings due to changes in labor and delivery practices.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Kyiv School of Economics in its series Discussion Papers with number
18.
Length: Date of creation: May 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:kse:dpaper:18
Note: Under review in Health Economics Contact details of provider: Postal: 13 Yakira Str, 04119 Kyiv Phone: (38-044)492-8012 Fax: (38-044)492-8011 Email: Web page: http://www.kse.org.ua/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Andriy Zapechelnyuk).
Find related papers by JEL classification: I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: