Interventions to maintain essential services for maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health during the Covid-19 pandemic

A scoping review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries

Bibliographic Data

ID19550201
AuthorsDiana Sagastume (0000-0002-9130-854X, Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde), Aloma Serra, A D Bosch Serra (United Nations Development Programme), Nina Gerlach (Independent consultant, Oldenburg, Germany), Andrey Portela (0000-0001-6368-1585, World Health Organization), Lenka Beňová (0000-0001-8595-365X, Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde)
Year2024
Volume14
Pages05024-05024
Publication date2024-06-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Global Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2047-2978 • E-ISSN: 2047-2986
PublisherInternational Society of Global Health (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.7189/jogh.14.05024
PMID38867685
OpenAlexW4399612491
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited40

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had challenged health systems worldwide, including those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Aside from measures to control the pandemic, efforts were made to continue the provision and use of essential services. At that time, information was not organised and readily available to guide country-level decision-making. This review aims to summarise evaluated interventions to maintain essential services for maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health in response to COVID-19 in LMICs, in order to learn from the interventions and facilitate their use in the next disruption. Methods: We conducted a scoping review by Embase, MEDLINE, and Global Health for literature published between 1 January 2020 and 26 December 2022, without restrictions for language. We extracted information about the setting, population targeted, service type, intervention, and evaluation from the included studies and summarised it both quantitatively and narratively. Results: We retrieved 11 395 unique references and included 30 studies describing 32 evaluated interventions. Most interventions (84%) were implemented in 2020, with a median duration of five months (interquartile range (IQR) = 3-8), and were conducted in Africa (34%) or Southeast Asia (31%). Interventions focussed on maintaining services for maternal and newborn health (56%) or children and adolescents (56%) were most common. Interventions aimed to address problems related to access (94%), fear (31%), health workers shortage (25%), and vulnerability (22%). Types of interventions included telehealth (69%), protocols/guidelines to adapt care provision (56%), and health education (40%); a few entailed health worker training (16%). The described interventions were mostly led by the public (56%) or non-profit (34%) sectors. Methodologies of their evaluations were heterogeneous; the majority used quantitative methods, had a prospective research design, and used output- and outcome-based indicators. Conclusions: In this review, we identified an important and growing body of evidence of evaluated interventions to maintain essential services for maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health during COVID-19 in LMICs. To improve preparedness and responsiveness for future disruptions, managers for decision-makers in LMICs could benefit from up-to-date inventories describing implemented interventions and evaluations to facilitate evidence-based implementation of strategies, as well as tools for conducting optimal quality operational and implementation research during disruptions (e.g. rapid ethical approvals, access to routine data)

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Developing country · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Low and middle income countries · MEDLINE · Pandemic · Political science · Psychological intervention · COVID-19 Impact on Reproduction · Global Maternal and Child Health · Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum · Medicine · Nursing · Virology

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