The Effect of Armed Conflict on the Utilization of Maternal Health Services in Uganda: A Population-based Study

Conclusion The findings in this study have shown that armed conflict can have a negative impact on maternal healthcare utilization, as previous studies have also suggested. However, certain aspects of maternal healthcare utilization, such as skilled assistance at birth in this study, show better results in conflict areas, likely as a result of humanitarian aid interventions to ensure the continuity of some healthcare services. In terms of the speed of post-conflict recovery, this study indicates that a 5-year period is too short to see any significant improvement in maternal health utilization rates. The complex nature of armed conflict and the interplay of different factors such as conflict intensity, weakened health systems and services, and humanitarian aid, make it challenging to propose a set of concrete recommendations on how to improve maternal healthcare utilization in such settings. One needs to bear in mind that prevailing challenges at the societal, healthcare system and individual level are usually exacerbated by conflict, and humanitarian interventions are temporary in nature and are not meant to be sustainable in the long-term or replace previously existing services. Therefore, in addressing the problem of maternal healthcare utilization in conflict, strategies that target both improving the availability, accessibility and quality of existing services during conflict, as well as ‘building back better’ in terms of strengthening health systems post-conflict,...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research