British analysts have found that cash payments to poor Latin Americans significantly boost their use of free newborn baby health services.
That conclusion, summarized and explained in this week's issue of the journal Lancet, reflects a study of households from 70 municipalities in Honduras with the highest rates of malnutrition.
Around 5,600 households were allocated at random to one of four groups: money to households, resources to local health teams combined with a community based nutrition intervention, both the first and second packages and neither of the first and second packages.
Participants were followed up 2 years later and surveyed to record any changes in use of health services. The household-level intervention had a large impact (15 percent to 20 percent increase) in coverage of antenatal care and well-child check-ups.
Childhood immunization series could therefore be started more opportunely, and the coverage of growth monitoring was markedly increased, the analysts said.
© Copyright 2004 by United Press International
