An Assessment of the Impact and Utilisation Pattern of Maternal Healthcare Services among Rural Women in Sub-Sharan African Countries

Abstract

The paper evaluates the utilisation and impacts of maternal healthcare, including antenatal care (ANC), skilled birth attendance (SBA), and postnatal care (PNC), among women in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression using repeated cross-sectional data is used to analyse individual, household and contextual factors affecting the use of maternal health care services. The findings show that the utilisation of ANC, SBA and PNC increased significantly and steadily throughout the Paper period, with the maximum likelihood in 2025 compared to 2015. Nevertheless, there are significant disparities between different socioeconomic and demographic groups. Overall, women who are more educated, have a higher wealth status, have health insurance coverage and exhibit higher exposure to mass media have greater service utilisation, whereas rural residence, higher parity and lower education have the opposite effect. The Paper finds that overall maternal healthcare services have improved in SSA, but inequalities remain, hindering equitable access to maternal health services, and increases in the capacity of rural health systems, combined with targeted policy interventions, are needed to improve maternal health in those areas.