Decision Support System to Develop Evidence-based Policies for Inequity Reduction in Maternal and Child Health Care

Abstract

To reduce inequity in maternal and child health care indicators among socio-economically different regions, strategic location-specific policies should be designed. In this research work, a knowledge-discovery-based interactive decision support system has been developed on a web platform which would assist health care policymakers to design evidence-based decisions. Two modules have been prepared under this system to find out key influential Maternal and Child Healthcare (MCH) interventions for socio-economically different regions which had high impact on health care indicators. Data of 284 districts of nine high-focus states of India have been provided into the system to find out the efficiency of the system. Those data have been collected from district- level household survey part three (DLHS-3). The first module of the system has segregated all 284 districts into three segments based on their educational, social and economic conditions, and the second module has found out key influential health care interventions for all three segments separately which had high impact on health care indicators. It has been observed that adolescent health care intervention like female sterilization and childhood health care interventions such as DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) vaccine and measles vaccine were key influential health care interventions. The improvement of coverage of these interventions would help to reduce inequity and improve health care indicators of regions. Further research should be done to understand how the coverage of these interventions can be improved, especially in socio-economically poor regions.