ObjectivesWe assess the relationship between distance to a woman’s assigned health clinic and obstetric care utilisation.DesignWe employ a cross-sectional study design using baseline data from the evaluation of a conditional cash transfer programme to promote greater utilisation of maternal and infant health services. Data were collected between December 2016 and January 2017.SettingThe study is conducted in Ngäbe Buglé, the largest of Panama’s three indigenous territories, where maternal mortality is three times the national average.ParticipantsWe analyse a representative sample of 1336 indigenous women with a birth in the 12 months prior to the survey.Primary and secondary outcome measuresPrimary outcomes include obstetric care utilisation measures for prenatal, childbirth and postpartum events. Secondary outcomes include reasons for not receiving prenatal care, alarming symptoms, child weight at birth and stillbirths or miscarriages.ResultsCompared with women in closest geographic proximity to a health centre (top quintile, Q1), women who lived farthest from a health centre (bottom quintile, Q5) had significantly lower obstetric care utilisation outcomes for critical prenatal, childbirth and postpartum events. Mothers in Q5 were 36 percentage points less likely to have had at least one prenatal care appointment in a hospital, health centre or clinic compared with mothers in Q1 (p<0.01), and 52 percentage points less likely to attend an institutional first appointment (p<0.01). The gap in institutional delivery and postnatal care between mothers in Q1 and Q5 was about 35 percentage points (p<0.01). All utilisation outcomes were negatively correlated with distance, and differences in obstetric care utilisation persisted even when controlling for household wealth, maternal age and maternal education.ConclusionDistance is an important barrier to obstetric care utilisation, with women in more distant locations suffering significantly lower use of prenatal, childbirth and postpartum care compared with women in closer vicinity to a health establishment. Expanding the supply of healthcare and implementing demand side incentives to promote the use of health services in remote communities are relevant policies to reduce disparities in obstetric care utilisation.Trial registration numberAEA Registry (RCT ID AEARCTR-0001751).

IntroductionIn Latin America, a rapid increase in obesity alongside persistent malnutrition has resulted in a double burden of disease that affects the most vulnerable segments of the population. Infant and young child feeding practices are important factors that affect both sides of the growth curve. Interventions such as behavioural change strategies and home fortification using products like small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) have the potential to reduce the presence of both these conditions, especially if they are implemented during the first 1000 days of life. This paper details the protocol for Sustained Programme for Improving Nutrition (SPOON), an innovative strategy to prevent stunting and reduce risk for obesity in children under 24 months old in high-poverty areas in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala.Methods and analysisSPOON Guatemala is a three-arm randomised control trial: treatment group 1 will receive the SPOON behavioural change strategy and SQ-LNS, treatment group 2 will receive the SPOON behavioural change strategy and micronutrient powders; the control group will receive the standard of care provided by the Ministry of Health, which includes micronutrient powders. A modified formula of SQ-LNS has been especially developed for this trial. A total of 76 communities are included in the study and 1628 households with a pregnant woman in the third trimester or a child under 4.5 months were recruited at baseline. Baseline data were collected between September and November 2018. Follow-up data will be collected 2 years after the start of the intervention. The primary outcomes of interest are related to mothers’ infant feeding knowledge and practice, and indicators of children’s nutritional status and growth including height, weight, weight gain rate and prevalence of stunting, overweight, obesity and anaemia. After follow-up data have been collected, differences of simple means and regression models including covariates such as child’s age and sex, characteristics of the primary caregiver and household socioeconomic indicators will be estimated. Heterogeneous effects will also be estimated within subgroups of age at exposure, sex, caregiver characteristics and household socioeconomic status.Ethics and disseminationThis study was approved by the National Health Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Health of Guatemala (resolution 10–2018). Informed consent was obtained from all mothers and caregivers prior to enrolment in the programme. Results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed medical or public health journal, and disseminated internally at the Inter-American Development Bank, with the Government and Stakeholders in Guatemala and through international conferences and seminars.Trial registration numberNCT03399617

Child stunting in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) decreased from 22.9% in 1990 to 9.6% in 2017. While stunting rates in the region were falling, access to electricity and refrigeration were on the rise. Despite a large body of evidence surrounding the effects of refrigeration on food consumption, and separately of the importance of food consumption for child health and nutrition, surprisingly few studies explore the potential effects of refrigeration on child nutrition. We studied the relationship between refrigeration and child nutrition outcomes using rich panel data for 1298 low-income households with children younger than 12 months at baseline in El Alto, Bolivia. We estimated the effects of refrigerator ownership on diet and nutrition outcomes using a difference-indifference approach. Owning a refrigerator was associated with increased food expenditures and improved child nutrition. We found evidence that households that acquired a refrigerator were more likely to buy food that requires refrigeration, and children in households that acquired refrigerators were 0.17 standard deviations taller for their age after 2 years. We also found that refrigeration was associated with a 0.26 standard deviation decline in BMI-forage , an effect driven by increased height rather than lower weight. These results suggest that refrigeration may play a role in explaining reductions in undernutrition observed in low-and middle-income countries in recent decades.

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Background In South Asia, roughly half of women attend at least four antenatal care visits with skilled health personnel, the minimum number recommended by the World Health Organization for optimal birth outcomes. A much greater proportion of women attend at least one antenatal care visit, suggesting that a key challenge is ensuring that women initiate antenatal care early in pregnancy and continue to attend after their first visit. One critical barrier to antenatal care attendance may be that women do not have sufficient power in their relationships, households, or communities to attend antenatal care when they want to. The main goals of this paper were to 1) understand the potential effects of intervening on direct measures of women’s empowerment—including household decision making, freedom of movement, and control over assets—on antenatal care attendance in a rural population of women in Bangladesh, and 2) examine whether differential associations exist across strata of socioeconomic status. Methods We analyzed data on 1609 mothers with children under 24 months old in rural Bangladesh and employed targeted maximum likelihood estimation with ensemble machine learning to estimate population average treatment effects. Results Greater women’s empowerment was associated with an increased number of antenatal care visits. Specifically, among women who attended at least one antenatal care visit, having high empowerment was associated with a greater probability of ≥ 4 antenatal care visits, both in comparison to low empowerment (15.2 pp, 95% CI: 6.0, 24.4) and medium empowerment (9.1 pp, 95% CI: 2.5, 15.7). The subscales of women’s empowerment driving the associations were women’s decision-making power and control over assets. We found that greater women’s empowerment is associated with more antenatal care visits regardless of socioeconomic status. Conclusions Empowerment-based interventions, particularly those targeting women’s involvement in household decisions and/or facilitating greater control over assets, may be a valuable strategy for increasing antenatal care attendance. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04111016, Date First Registered: 01/10/2019.