Evaluation of Maternal Health Service Indicators in Urban Slum of Bangladesh

A continuous influx of poor people to urban slums poses a challenge to Bangladesh’s health system as it has failed to tackle maternal morbidity and mortality. BRAC is the largest non-governmental organisation in Bangladesh. BRAC has been working to reduce maternal, neonatal and under-five children morbidity and mortality of slum dwellers in cities. BRAC has been doing this work for a decade through a programme called MANOSHI. This programme provides door-to-door services to its beneficiaries through community health workers (CHWs) and normal delivery service through its delivery and maternity centres. BRAC started the ‘MANOSHI’ programme in Narayanganj City Corporation during 2011 to address maternal, neonatal and child health problems facing slum dwellers. We investigated the existing maternal health-service indicators in the slums of Narayanganj City Corporation and compared the findings with a non-intervention area. test, Mann Whitney U-test, factor analysis and log-binominal test were performed by using STATA statistical software for analysing data.The activities of BRAC CHWs significantly improved four or more ANC (47% vs. 21%; p<0.000) and PNC (48% vs. 39%; p