Maternal health and transport

This key issues guide examines the relationship between maternal health and transport. Specifically, it looks at how transport affects access to preventative and emergency maternal health services. Access to transport enables women to receive timely obstetric care that is essential for their survival. Transport is therefore an important element that contributes towards reaching the fifth millennium development goal, to reduce maternal mortality by 75 per cent by 2015.

The ‘three delays’ model of maternal mortality is used as a framework to show how transport-related factors affect individuals and families decisions to seek care, identify and reach a facility and receive adequate treatment. The guide provides examples of transport-related interventions that have been implemented to increase access to and use of health facilities and recommendations for policy.

Introduction

Transport plays a critical role in the effective and efficient delivery of health care. This secion looks at the role that transport plays in access to health services and the link between transport and maternal health. More...

Role of transport in accessing maternal health services

This section looks at how transport can delay access to and use of maternal health services, especially for poor women living in rural areas. More...

Transport interventions to improve maternal health

This section presents a brief overview of interventions aimed at addressing some of the transport related factors that delay women's access to adequate obstetric care. More...

Recommendations for policy