Kuboresha Afya Mitaani: Improving Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Outcomes for Vulnerable Women and Newborns in Informal Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

The Population Council-Kenya partnered with Jacaranda Health and the Nairobi Metropolitan Services to improve the quality of the ecosystem for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) services in two informal settlements of Nairobi, Mathare North and Kawangware. Over a period of three years, the team worked with County and subcounty health managers to integrate typically siloed actors in the quality-of- care space-including women and their families, communities surrounding facilities, providers, health regulators, and actors in sanitation and air pollution-into a “Quality Ecosystem.” We targeted women and neonates in the informal settlements, associated households and the communities they live in to reach approximately 40,000 mothers over three years. As part of this effort, together with the county health department, we optimized and adopted the PROMPTS (Promoting Mothers through Pregnancy and Postpartum) digital tool- a free text- messaging platform that provides pregnant women and new mothers with a carefully designed sequence of behavioral nudge messages and a clinician-supported help desk to answer questions. Our endline assessment found that the PROMPTS digital tool increased women’s knowledge of pregnancy complications, and enhanced care-seeking behaviors.肯尼亚人口理事会（Population Council-Kenya）与蓝花楹健康（Jacaranda Health）、内罗毕城市服务局（Nairobi Metropolitan Services）合作，旨在提升内罗毕两处非正式定居点（马萨雷北区Mathare North与卡万瓦雷Kawangware）内孕产、新生儿与儿童健康（Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health，缩写MNCH）服务的生态系统质量。三年间，项目团队与县及分区卫生管理人员协作，将医疗质量领域原本各自为政的行动主体——包括妇女及其家属、医疗机构周边社区、医疗服务提供者、卫生监管机构，以及环境卫生与空气污染领域的参与者——整合为"质量生态系统"。项目针对上述非正式定居点内的妇女、新生儿、相关家庭及其居住社区，计划在三年内覆盖约4万名母亲。作为该工作的一部分，我们联合县卫生部门优化并采用了PROMPTS（Promoting Mothers through Pregnancy and Postpartum）数字工具：这是一款免费短信平台，可为孕妇与新妈妈提供精心设计的系列行为助推信息，并配备由临床医生支持的咨询服务台以解答各类疑问。项目终期评估结果显示，PROMPTS数字工具提升了妇女对妊娠并发症的认知水平，并改善了其就医行为。