Journal of health, population, and nutrition
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Equity and gender, despite being universal concerns for all health programmes in Bangladesh, are often missing in many of the health agenda. The health programmes fail to address these important dimensions unless these are specifically included in the planning stage of a programme and are continually monitored for progress. This paper presents the situation of equity in health in Bangladesh, innovations in monitoring equity in the use of health services in general and by the poor in particular, and impact of targeted non-health interventions on health outcomes of the poor. ⋯ Although health problems are biomedical phenomena, their solutions may include actions beyond the biomedical framework. Studies have shown that non-health interventions targeted towards the poor improve the use of health services and reduce mortality among children in poor households. The study on equity and health deals with various interlocking issues, and the examples and views presented in this paper intend to introduce their importance in designing and managing health and development programmes.
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J Health Popul Nutr · Sep 2008
ReviewNutrition: basis for healthy children and mothers in Bangladesh.
Recent data from the World Health Organization showed that about 60% of all deaths, occurring among children aged less than five years (under-five children) in developing countries, could be attributed to malnutrition. It has been estimated that nearly 50.6 million under-five children are malnourished, and almost 90% of these children are from developing countries. Bangladesh is one of the countries with the highest rate of malnutrition. ⋯ The protocolized management of severe protein-energy malnutrition at the Dhaka hospital of ICDDR,B has reduced the rate of hospital mortality by 50%. A recent study at ICDDR,B has also documented that home-based management of severe protein-energy malnutrition without follow-up was comparable with a hospital-based protocolized management. Although the community nutrition centres of the NNP have been providing food supplementation and performing growth monitoring of children with protein-energy malnutrition, the referral system and management of complicated severely-malnourished children are still not in place.