Comparing summary measures of quality of care for family planning in Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania.

Measuring quality of care in family planning services is essential for policymakers and stakeholders. However, there is limited agreement on which mathematical approaches are best able to summarize quality of care. Our study used data from recent Service Provision Assessment surveys in Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania to compare three methods commonly used to create summary indices of quality of care-a simple additive, a weighted additive that applies equal weights among domains, and principal components analysis (PCA) based methods.

Benefits of biodiverse marine resources to child nutrition in differing developmental contexts in Hispaniola.

There is an urgent need for an improved empirical understanding of the relationship among biodiverse marine resources, human health and development outcomes. Coral reefs are often at this intersection for developing nations in the tropics-an ecosystem targeted for biodiversity conservation and one that provides sustenance and livelihoods for many coastal communities. To explore these relationships, we use the comparative development contexts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola.

The impact of health insurance on maternal health care utilization: evidence from Ghana, Indonesia and Rwanda.

While research has assessed the impact of health insurance on health care utilization, few studies have focused on the effects of health insurance on use of maternal health care. Analyzing nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), this study estimates the impact of health insurance status on the use of maternal health services in three countries with relatively high levels of health insurance coverage-Ghana, Indonesia and Rwanda. The analysis uses propensity score matching to adjust for selection bias in health insurance uptake and to assess the effect of health insurance on four measurements of maternal health care utilization: making at least one antenatal care visit; making four or more antenatal care visits; initiating antenatal care within the first trimester and giving birth in a health facility.

Muslim and Hindu Women's public and private behaviors: gender, family, and communalized politics in India.

Prior research on fundamentalist religious movements has focused attention on the complicated relationship among gender, family, and religion. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 30,000 Hindu and Muslim women, this study compares the daily public and private behaviors of women in India to examine how gender and family norms are shaped in the context of communalized identity politics. Building on the theoretical framework of "doing gender," we argue that because communal identities are expressed through externally visible behaviors, greater religious differences are expected in external markers of gendered behaviors and family norms.