Maternal mortality remains a major challenge to health systems worldwide. Reliable information about the rates and trends in maternal mortality is essential for resource mobilisation, and for planning and assessment of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5), the target for which is a 75% reduction in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 1990 to 2015.
The apparent failure to reduce maternal mortality during 20 years of the Safe Motherhood movement has been one of the most deforming scars on the body of global health. Despite strong advocacy efforts, political leaders have either ignored the call or failed to make the health of women in pregnancy their priority.
New Delhi: Despite progress in reducing maternal mortality, India is in the unenviable position of 73rd out of 77 middle-income countries rated by the new
Numerous studies have reported that traffic-related air pollution is associated with intrauterine growth restriction, low birth weight, and preterm birth, but studies to determine the most harmful pollutants and the most susceptible periods for exposure have been inconclusive. Aguilera et al.
Early-life exposure to environmental pollutants such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) or diets high in fat has been associated with an increased risk of cancer. La Merrill et al. (p. 596) investigated how developmental exposure to TCDD and a high-fat diet (HFD) might interact to alter breast cancer susceptibility in a laboratory animal model.
While the official estimates of poverty in India are derived from the consumption expenditure data, economic proxies are increasingly used to explain the differentials in health and healthcare utilisation in population-based surveys.
