Using Household Socioeconomic Indicators to Predict the Utilization of Maternal and Child Health Services Among Reproductive-Aged Women in Rural Yemen.

Using principal component analysis (PCA) and integrating both individual and household factors, we had previously derived and proposed 3 socioeconomic indices (namely, wealth index, educational index, and housing quality index) that can be used to classify rural Yemeni women into different socioeconomic statuses (SES). In the current article, we examined whether the PCA-derived indices can be used to predict the use of maternal and child health care services in rural Yemen. We used data from subnational representative multistage sampling cross-sectional household survey conducted in rural Yemen in 2008-2009 among women (N = 6907) who had given birth.

Measures of Maternal Socioeconomic Status in Yemen and Association with Maternal and Child Health Outcomes.

Background: Reliable measurement of socioeconomic status (SES) in health research requires extensive resources and can be challenging in low-income countries. We aimed to develop a set of maternal SES indices and investigate their associations with maternal and child health outcomes in rural Yemen.

Methods: We applied factor analysis based on principal component analysis extraction to construct the SES indices by capturing household attributes for 7295 women of reproductive age.

Findings from a needs assessment of public sector emergency obstetric and neonatal care in four governorates in Yemen: a human resources crisis.

Recent reviews suggest that it is unlikely Yemen will reach Millennium Development Goal 5 on maternal health by 2015. We conducted a needs assessment in 2010 to identify the human resources constraints in delivery of emergency obstetric and neonatal care (EmONC), in one urban and three under-served rural governorates. The assessment tools were adapted from the UN Guidelines for Monitoring Availability and Use of EmONC.

Reducing maternal mortality in Yemen: challenges and lessons learned from baseline assessment.

Objective: The Yemen is a signatory of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and one of 10 countries chosen for the UN Millennium Project. However, recent MDG progress reviews show that it is unlikely that the maternal health goal will be reached by 2015 and Yemen still has an unacceptably high maternal mortality of 365 per 100000 live births. Because 82% of deaths happen intrapartum, the purpose of this needs assessment was to identify and prioritize constraints in delivery of emergency obstetric care (EmOC).