Vulnerability in maternal, new-born, and child health in low- and middle-income countries: Findings from a scoping review

Olusesan Ayodeji Makinde; Olalekan A Uthman; Ifeanyi C Mgbachi; Nchelem Kokomma Ichegbo; Fatima Abdulaziz Sule; Emmanuel O Olamijuwon; Babasola O Okusanya

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0276747

Vulnerability in maternal, new-born, and child health in low- and middle-income countries: Findings from a scoping review

PLoS One. 2022 Nov 11;17(11):e0276747. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276747. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Olusesan Ayodeji Makinde^{1

2}, Olalekan A Uthman³, Ifeanyi C Mgbachi¹, Nchelem Kokomma Ichegbo^{1

2}, Fatima Abdulaziz Sule¹, Emmanuel O Olamijuwon¹, Babasola O Okusanya⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Research and Development, Viable Helpers Development Organization, Abuja, Nigeria.
² Department of Research and Development, Viable Knowledge Masters, Abuja, Nigeria.
³ Department of Global Health, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria.

Abstract

Objectives: To identify and synthesise prevailing definitions and indices of vulnerability in maternal, new-born and child health (MNCH) research and health programs in low- and middle-income countries.

Design and setting: Scoping review using Arksey and O'Malley's framework and a Delphi survey for consensus building.

Participants: Mothers, new-borns, and children living in low- and middle-income countries were selected as participants.

Outcomes: Vulnerability as defined by the authors was deduced from the studies.

Results: A total of 61 studies were included in this scoping review. Of this, 22 were publications on vulnerability in the context of maternal health and 40 were on new-born and child health. Definitions used in included studies can be broadly categorised into three domains: biological, socioeconomic, and environmental. Eleven studies defined vulnerability in the context of maternal health, five reported on the scales used to measure vulnerability in maternal health and only one study used a validated scale. Of the 40 included studies on vulnerability in child health, 19 defined vulnerability in the context of new-born and/or child health, 15 reported on the scales used to measure vulnerability in child health and nine reported on childhood vulnerability indices. As it was difficult to synthesise the definitions, their keywords were extracted to generate new candidate definitions for vulnerability in MNCH.

Conclusion: Included studies paid greater attention to new-born/ child vulnerability than maternal vulnerability, with authors defining the terms differently. A definition which helps in improving the description of vulnerability in MNCH across various programs and researchers was arrived at. This will further help in streamlining research and interventions which can influence the design of high impact MNCH programs.

Scoping review registration: The protocol for this review was registered in the open science framework at the registered address (https://osf.io/jt6nr).

Copyright: © 2022 Makinde et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Child Health*
Developing Countries*
Female
Health Promotion
Humans
Income
Maternal Health

Grants and funding

This work was supported in whole by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [INV-015806]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.