IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/wbk/wbpubs/14754.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

Investing in Maternal Health : Learning from Malaysia and Sri Lanka

Author

Listed:
  • Indra Pathmanathan
  • Jerker Liljestrand
  • Jo. M. Martins
  • Lalini C. Rajapaksa
  • Craig Lissner
  • Amala de Silva
  • Swarna Selvaraju
  • Prabha Joginder Singh

Abstract

This study provides the most comprehensive and detailed analysis available on factors behind the decline in maternal mortality in Malaysia and Sri Lanka in the past 50 to 60 years and the magnitude of health system expenditures on maternal health. The main findings are that a modest investment in maternal health services, combined with other poverty reduction measures leads to a fairly rapid decline in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR), defined as the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The strategies of Malaysia and Sri Lanka changed over time, from an initial emphasis on expanding the provision of services, especially in underserved areas, to increasing utilization and, finally, to emphasizing the improvement of quality. Removing financial barriers to maternal care for clients was an important step in both countries. Professional midwives constitute the backbone of maternal care in Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The MMR reduction in developing countries is feasible with modest public expenditures when appropriate policies are adopted, focused wisely, and adapted incrementally in response to environmental conditions and systems capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Indra Pathmanathan & Jerker Liljestrand & Jo. M. Martins & Lalini C. Rajapaksa & Craig Lissner & Amala de Silva & Swarna Selvaraju & Prabha Joginder Singh, 2003. "Investing in Maternal Health : Learning from Malaysia and Sri Lanka," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14754.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbpubs:14754
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstreams/956e9a3b-d36c-5f16-9b79-e13897f1e28f/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 1978. "World Development Report 1978," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5961.
    2. Matthew Jowett, 2000. "Cost-effective safe motherhood interventions in low-income countries: a review," Working Papers 181chedp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. World Bank, 2007. "Sri Lanka - Poverty Assessment : Engendering Growth with Equity, Opportunities and Challenges," World Bank Publications - Reports 8050, The World Bank Group.
    2. William Joe & B Subha Sri & Jyotsna Sharma & Y Manasa Shanta & Suresh Sharma, 2015. "Strategies for Safe Motherhood in Tamil Nadu: A Note," IEG Working Papers 357, Institute of Economic Growth.
    3. Meera Chatterjee & Ruth Levine & Nirmala Murthy & Shreelata Rao-Seshadri, 2008. "Sparing Lives : Better Reproductive Health for Poor Women in South Asia, Summary for Policymakers," World Bank Publications - Reports 7848, The World Bank Group.
    4. World Bank, 2005. "Sri Lanka : Attaining the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka, How Likely and What Will it Take to Reduce Poverty, Child Mortality and Malnutrition, and to Increase School Enrollment and Complet," World Bank Publications - Reports 8635, The World Bank Group.
    5. Kumar, Ramya & Birn, Anne-Emanuelle & Bhuyan, Rupaleem & Wong, Josephine Pui-Hing, 2022. "Universal health coverage and public-private arrangements within Sri Lanka's mixed health system: Perspectives from women seeking healthcare," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    6. Parkhurst, Justin Oliver & Penn-Kekana, Loveday & Blaauw, Duane & Balabanova, Dina & Danishevski, Kirill & Rahman, Syed Azizur & Onama, Virgil & Ssengooba, Freddie, 2005. "Health systems factors influencing maternal health services: a four-country comparison," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 127-138, August.
    7. Arlette Campbell White & Thomas W. Merrick & Abdo S. Yazbeck, 2006. "Reproductive Health—The Missing Millennium Development Goal : Poverty, Health, and Development in a Changing World," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7116.
    8. Julie Babinard & Peter Roberts, 2006. "Maternal and Child Mortality Development Goals : What Can the Transport Sector Do?," World Bank Publications - Reports 17413, The World Bank Group.
    9. Jerome K Kabakyenga & Per-Olof Östergren & Eleanor Turyakira & Karen Odberg Pettersson, 2012. "Influence of Birth Preparedness, Decision-Making on Location of Birth and Assistance by Skilled Birth Attendants among Women in South-Western Uganda," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-8, April.
    10. Bharat Randive & Vishal Diwan & Ayesha De Costa, 2013. "India’s Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (the JSY) to Promote Institutional Birth: Is There an Association between Institutional Birth Proportion and Maternal Mortality?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-8, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shukri, Ahmed, 2006. "Diversification across crops and land in small holder agriculture in Ethiopia: the case of shewa administrative region," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 12(01), pages 1-73.
    2. Scott Gates & Håvard Hegre & Håvard Mokleiv Nygård & Håvard Strand, 2011. "Consequences of Civil Conflict," World Bank Publications - Reports 9071, The World Bank Group.
    3. Glyn, Andrew & Hughes, Alan & Lipietz, Alan & Sigh, Ajit, "undated". "The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age," WIDER Working Papers 295573, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Henry Tam, 2008. "An economic or political Kuznets curve?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 367-389, March.
    5. Weede, Erich, 1997. "Income inequality, democracy and growth reconsidered," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 751-764, December.
    6. Scott Gates & Håvard Hegre & Håvard Mokleiv Nygård & Håvard Strand, 2010. "Consequences of Civil Conflict," World Bank Publications - Reports 27502, The World Bank Group.
    7. Barbara Entwisle, 1981. "CBR versus TFR in cross-national fertility research," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 18(4), pages 635-643, November.
    8. Dao, Minh Quang, 2010. "Distribution and Development in Developing Countries: An Empirical Assessment - Distribuzione e crescita nei paesi in via di sviluppo: una valutazione empirica," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 63(2), pages 169-178.
    9. G J R Linge, 1979. "Australian Manufacturing in Recession: A Review of the Spatial Implications," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 11(12), pages 1405-1430, December.
    10. Rosina Foli & Daniel Béland, 2014. "International Organizations and Ideas About Poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 3-23, March.
    11. Rizwanul Islam, 2015. "The Challenge of Jobless Growth in Developing Countries: An Analysis with Cross-Country Data," Working Papers id:7303, eSocialSciences.
    12. Social Policy and Population Section, Social Development Division, ESCAP., 1991. "Asia-Pacific Population Journal Volume 6, No. 2," Asia-Pacific Population Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 6(2), pages 1-69, November.
    13. Colclough, Christopher, 1989. "The labor market and economic stabilization inZambia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 222, The World Bank.
    14. Gianni Vaggi, 2017. "The rich and the poor: A note on countries’ classification," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 70(280), pages 59-82.
    15. Essama-Nssah, B. & Bassole, Leandre, 2010. "A counterfactual analysis of the poverty impact of economic growth in Cameroon," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5249, The World Bank.
    16. Andrew Mackillop, 1980. "Economic Considerations For Solar And Renewable Energy In Developing Countries," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 4(2), pages 165-179, April.
    17. Garnaut, Ross, 1996. "Economic reform in India and China: An essay in honor of Heinz Wolfgang Arndt," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 29-47.
    18. Angus Deaton & Shahid Yusuf & Kemal Dervis & William Easterly & Takatoshi Ito & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2009. "Development Economics through the Decades," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2586.
    19. Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, 2018. "Calibrating and aggregating multi-dimensional concepts with fuzzy sets: “Human Development” and the quality of democracy," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 350-357.
    20. Wetzel, Deborah L., 1993. "Adjustment lending, conditionality and public capital expenditure in sub- saharan Africa: an overview," ILO Working Papers 992979943402676, International Labour Organization.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbpubs:14754. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tal Ayalon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.