| Summary: | Although substantial progress has been made in reducing
child and maternal deaths in the past 15 years, many women
and children in low- and middle-income countries continue
to die of avertable causes. To stimulate a concerted effort to
narrow the gap between rich and poor countries, the United
Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) include new
targets to reduce maternal mortality to less than 70 per 100 000
live births and to reduce deaths of children younger than five
years to 25 per 1000 live births by 2030. In this paper, we analyse the variation in the quality of
processes of care in health facilities in seven countries in subSaharan Africa for two primary-care services: (i) antenatal care
and (ii) care of sick children, using observations of clinical
care, a gold standard measure of process quality. The results
will inform policy-makers about current performance and
provide a starting point for a broader discussion of quality
measurement in the SDG era.
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