International Women's Day 2025
March 8th marks International Women’s Day 2025, a day to celebrate, recognise and empower women worldwide. At Health Policy and Planning we are proud to be led by two women Co-Editors-in-Chief, Prof Virginia Wiseman and Prof Lucy Gilson.
This year's theme is 'For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.' At Health Policy and Planning we have put together a collection to mark this day and showcase our most relevant and recent research in commemoration of International Women's Day.
ABORTION PROVISION AND LAW
Carmen Hall and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 10, December 2023, Pages 1181–1197, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad081
Providing legal and safe abortion is promoted as one of the key global strategies for reducing maternal mortality. Following the landmark 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are shifting towards more liberal abortion legislation....
Linnea A Zimmerman and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 3, April 2023, Pages 330–341, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czac103
In Ethiopia, abortions are legal for minors and for rape, incest, foetal impairment or maternal disability. Knowledge of abortion legality and availability is low, and little effort has been made to disseminate this information for fear of invoking anti-abortion sentiment;...
Sarah E Baum and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 9, November 2021, Pages 1362–1370, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab065
Quality healthcare is a key part of people’s right to health and dignity, yet access to high-quality care can be limited by legal, social and economic contexts. There is limited consensus on what domains constitute quality in abortion care and...
Foluso Ishola and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 9, November 2021, Pages 1483–1498, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab069
While restrictive abortion laws still prevail in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many countries have reformed their abortion laws, expanding the grounds on which abortion can be performed legally. However, the implications of these reforms on women’s access to...
GENDER LENS
Rosemary Morgan and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 9, November 2024, Pages 1000–1005, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae073
Gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for health and health systems interventions and programs is vital to improve health, health systems, and gender equality outcomes. It can be used to identify and address gender disparities in program participation, outcomes and benefits,...
Sali Hafez and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 2, March 2023, Pages 181–191, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czac075
The Revised National Community Health Services Policy (2016–2021) (RNCHSP) and its programme implementation, the Liberian National Community Health Assistant Programme (NCHAP), exhibit a critical gender imbalance among the Community Health Assistants (CHAs) as only 17% are women. This study was...
Tanya Jacobs and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 5, June 2021, Pages 684–694, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab041
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Global Strategy (2016–30) emphasize that all women, children and adolescents ‘survive, thrive and transform’. A key element of this global policy framework is that gender equality is a stand-alone goal as...
Elodie Besnier and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 2, March 2024, Pages 95–117, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad009
Cash transfers (CTs) have been increasingly used in low- and middle-income countries as a poverty reduction and social protection tool. Despite their potential for empowering vulnerable groups (especially women), the evidence for such outcomes remains unclear. Additionally, little is known...
MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
Do Thi Hanh Trang and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 6, July 2024, Pages 541–551, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae027
The prevalence of common perinatal mental disorders in Vietnam ranges from 16.9% to 39.9%, and substantial treatment gaps have been identified at all levels. This paper explores constraints to the integration of maternal and mental health services at the primary...
Sara Dada and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 9, November 2023, Pages 1079–1098, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad078
As community engagement (CE) is implemented for sustainable maternal and newborn health (MNH) programming, it is important to determine how these approaches work. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have become a particular focus for MNH CE activities due to their...
Aster Ferede Gebremedhin and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 37, Issue 7, August 2022, Pages 895–914, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czac034
Conventionally used coverage measures do not reflect the quality of care. Effective coverage (EC) assesses the extent to which health care services deliver potential health gains to the population by integrating concepts of utilization, need and quality. We aimed to...
Firew Tekle Bobo and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 5, June 2021, Pages 662–672, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czaa192
The use of quality antenatal care (ANC) improves maternal and newborn health outcomes. Ensuring equity in access to quality maternal health services is a priority agenda in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to assess inequalities in the use...
Edson Serván-Mori and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 10, December 2021, Pages 1671–1680, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab119
This article examines the coverage in the continuum of antenatal–postnatal care for vulnerable women in Mexico according to indigenous status and assesses the influence of public health insurance strategies on the evolution of coverage over the last 25 years. We studied...
Gil Shapira and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 7, August 2021, Pages 1140–1151, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab064
The coronavirus-19 pandemic and its secondary effects threaten the continuity of essential health services delivery, which may lead to worsened population health and a protracted public health crisis. We quantify such disruptions, focusing on maternal and child health, in eight...
Neha S Singh and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 37, Issue 5, May 2022, Pages 565–574, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab148
Research is needed to understand why some countries succeed in greater improvements in maternal, late foetal and newborn health (MNH) and reducing mortality than others. Pathways towards these health outcomes operate at many levels, making it difficult to understand which...
ACCESS TO QUALITY SERVICES
Briana J Jegier and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 9, November 2024, Pages 916–945, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae069
Breastfeeding is important for women and children’s health, but less than half of infants worldwide begin life with optimal breastfeeding. A growing literature shows consistently large economic costs of not breastfeeding, with global studies showing economic losses of around US$300...
Maria Lazo-Porras and Tricia Penniecook
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue Supplement_2, November 2023, Pages ii1–ii2, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad073
Barriers to access to quality services and caring for underserved populations are a call to action for researchers and other key partners to achieve health equity. In order to accomplish this, several key partners play important roles. More participation of...
Karen A Webb and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 9, November 2021, Pages 1441–1450, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab058
Increasing facility-based delivery rates is pivotal to reach Sustainable Development Goals to improve skilled attendance at birth and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The translation of global health initiatives into national policy and programmes...
Amarech G Obse and John E Ataguba
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 5, June 2021, Pages 651–661, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab036
Significant maternal and child deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) even with existing effective interventions. Antenatal care (ANC), for example, is an intervention that improves the health of pregnant women and their babies, but only 52% of pregnant women in...
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Manuela Colombini and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 6, July 2024, Pages 552–563, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae032
Domestic violence (DV) is a global prevalent health problem leading to adverse health consequences, yet health systems are often unprepared to address it. This article presents a comparative synthesis of the health system’s pre-conditions necessary to enable integration of DV...
Emily McLean and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 8, October 2024, Pages 831–840, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae061
Improving access to abortion services has been coined a high priority by the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health. Nevertheless, many women are still struggling to access abortion services. The dedicated commitment to expanding abortion services by central authorities and the...
Keshab Deuba and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 2, March 2024, Pages 198–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae003
Violence against women (VAW), particularly intimate partner violence (IPV) or domestic violence, is a major public health issue, garnering more attention globally post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown. Health providers often represent the first point of contact for IPV victims. Thus,...
Rosemary Morgan and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 3, April 2023, Pages 417–419, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad005
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)—both during times of war and peace—can have impactful negative social and health outcomes. Reports of rape being used as an act of war in Ukraine are drawing global attention to the need for specialized care...
Katherine Watson and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 9, November 2023, Pages 1113–1120, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad052
This paper presents methodological reflections from the development of the World Health Organization (WHO) Violence against Women (VAW) Policies Database (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Database’) to inform future efforts to create similar public health policy databases for government accountability....
Lauren Maxwell and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 37, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages 33–44, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab127
In this analysis, we assess whether laws that promote gender equity and freedom from violence are associated with a lower risk of prior-year physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) among adolescent girls and adult women (AGW) and whether these...
SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS
Krishnashree Achuthan and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 40, Issue 2, March 2025, Pages 218–233, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae117
Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) among girls in rural India poses a substantial challenge for public health, education, and quality of life, exacerbated by limited access to and affordability of menstrual products. In response to these issues, the Government of India...
Yidie Lin and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue 4, May 2024, Pages 363–371, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae008
Low-fertility rate has been a common problem in many industrialized countries. To reverse the declining trend of new births, Chinese government gradually lifted its restrictions on the number of births per family, allowing for a household to have no more...
Rochelle A Burgess and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 4, May 2023, Pages 421–434, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad006
Despite its inclusion in Sustainable Development Goal 5 to end all harmful gendered practices by 2030, child, early and forced marriages continue to be a pervasive problem globally. While there is consistent evidence on the physical health consequences of child...
Ananth Srinath and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 38, Issue 4, May 2023, Pages 509–527, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czac104
There is an alarmingly high growth in breast and cervical cancers in low- and middle-income countries. Due to late presentation to doctors, there is a lower cure rate. The screening programmes in low- and middle-income countries are not comprehensive. In...
Rakesh Gupta and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 10, December 2021, Pages 1499–1507, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab111
The Government of India initiated the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (B3P) programme in 2015 as a flagship initiative to reduce gender imbalance in sex ratio at birth (SRB) and to ensure social protection of girls. The present study was conducted...
Sara E Baumann and others
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 36, Issue 7, August 2021, Pages 1003–1012, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab032
Chhaupadi is a form of menstrual seclusion practiced in Nepal in which women and girls are isolated during their menstrual cycles and follow numerous restrictions. The tradition dates back centuries and can have serious physical and mental health consequences. While...
