Sohni Dean and colleagues report their CHNRI exercise that developed health research priorities for effective pre-conception care in low- and middle-income countries.
Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary
BackgroundResearchers and implementers working in adolescent health, and adolescents themselves question whether government-run health services in conservative and resource-constrained settings can be made adolescent friendly. This paper aims to find out what selected low and middle income country (LMIC) governments have set out to do to improve the quality of health service provision to adolescents; whether their efforts led to measurable improvements in quality and to increased health service-utilization by adolescents.MethodsWe gathered normative guidance and reports from eight LMICs in Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific. We analysed national quality standards for adolescent friendly health services, findings from the assessments of the quality of health service provision, and findings on the utilization of health services.ResultsGovernments of LMICs have set out to improve the accessibility, acceptability, equity, appropriateness and effectiveness of health service provision to adolescents by defining standards and actions to achieve them. Their actions have led to measurable improvements in quality and to increases in health service utilisation by adolescents.ConclusionsWith support, government-run health facilities in LMICs can improve the quality of health services and their utilization by adolescents.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.