Bangladesh: An Intervention Study of Factors Underlying Increasing Equity in Child Survival

Abstract

This chapter describes the separate and joint health benefits arising from a rural development program designed to promote the rights and status of poor women, and a maternal child health program in rural Bangladesh. The case study is remarkable in that the interventions have been accompanied by reductions in inequities in health—differentials between socioeconomic and gender groups in child mortality have narrowed dramatically in the past two decades. Not only has mortality declined across all groups, but the greatest absolute and relative gains in child mortality were experienced by girls from the poorest households. This example of intervention research provides a valuable model with which to gather further empirical evidence on the ways to reduce socioeconomic and gender inequities in health.