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Background: The Government of Bihar (GoB) in India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several non-governmental organisations launched the Ananya program aimed to support the GoB to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition (RMNCHN) statewide. Here we summarise changes in indicators attained during the initial two-year pilot phase (2012-2013) of implementation in eight focus districts of approximately 28 million population, aimed to inform subsequent scale-up.Methods: The quasi-experimental impact evaluation included statewide household surveys at two time points during the pilot phase: January-April 2012 ("baseline") including an initial cohort of beneficiaries and January-April 2014 ("midline") with a new cohort. The two arms were: 1) eight intervention districts, and 2) a comparison arm comprised of the remaining 30 districts in Bihar where Ananya interventions were not implemented. We analysed changes in indicators across the RMNCHN continuum of care from baseline to midline in intervention and comparison districts using a difference-in-difference analysis.Results: Indicators in the two arms were similar at baseline. Overall, 40% of indicators (20 of 51) changed significantly from baseline to midline in the comparison districts unrelated to Ananya; two-thirds (n = 13) of secular indicator changes were in a direction expected to promote health. Statistically significant impact attributable to the Ananya program was found for 10% (five of 51) of RMNCHN indicators. Positive impacts were most prominent for mother's behaviours in contraceptive utilisation.Conclusions: The Ananya program had limited impact in improving health-related outcomes during the first two-year period covered by this evaluation. The program's theories of change and action were not powered to observe statistically significant differences in RMNCHN indicators within two years, but rather aimed to help inform program improvements and scale-up. Evaluation of large-scale programs such as Ananya using theory-informed, equity-sensitive (including gender), mixed-methods approaches can help elucidate causality and better explain pathways through which supply- and demand-side interventions contribute to changes in behaviour among the actors involved in the production of population-level health outcomes. Evidence from Bihar indicates that deep structural constraints in health system organisation and delivery of interventions pose substantial limitations on behaviour change among health care providers and beneficiaries.Study Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT02726230. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Government of Bihar (GoB) in India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several non-governmental organisations launched the Ananya program aimed to support the GoB to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition (RMNCHN) statewide. Here we summarise changes in indicators attained during the initial two-year pilot phase (2012-2013) of implementation in eight focus districts of approximately 28 million population, aimed to inform subsequent scale-up., Methods: The quasi-experimental impact evaluation included statewide household surveys at two time points during the pilot phase: January-April 2012 ("baseline") including an initial cohort of beneficiaries and January-April 2014 ("midline") with a new cohort. The two arms were: 1) eight intervention districts, and 2) a comparison arm comprised of the remaining 30 districts in Bihar where Ananya interventions were not implemented. We analysed changes in indicators across the RMNCHN continuum of care from baseline to midline in intervention and comparison districts using a difference-in-difference analysis., Results: Indicators in the two arms were similar at baseline. Overall, 40% of indicators (20 of 51) changed significantly from baseline to midline in the comparison districts unrelated to Ananya ; two-thirds (n = 13) of secular indicator changes were in a direction expected to promote health. Statistically significant impact attributable to the Ananya program was found for 10% (five of 51) of RMNCHN indicators. Positive impacts were most prominent for mother's behaviours in contraceptive utilisation., Conclusions: The Ananya program had limited impact in improving health-related outcomes during the first two-year period covered by this evaluation. The program's theories of change and action were not powered to observe statistically significant differences in RMNCHN indicators within two years, but rather aimed to help inform program improvements and scale-up. Evaluation of large-scale programs such as Ananya using theory-informed, equity-sensitive (including gender), mixed-methods approaches can help elucidate causality and better explain pathways through which supply- and demand-side interventions contribute to changes in behaviour among the actors involved in the production of population-level health outcomes. Evidence from Bihar indicates that deep structural constraints in health system organisation and delivery of interventions pose substantial limitations on behaviour change among health care providers and beneficiaries., Study Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT02726230., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors have completed the ICMJE Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) tools have potential for improving the reach and quality of health information and services through community health workers in low- and middle-income countries. This study evaluates the impact of an mHealth tool implemented at scale as part of the statewide reproductive,maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition (RMNCHN) program in Bihar, India., Methods: Three survey-based data sets were analysed to compare the health-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviours amongst childbearing women exposed to the Mobile Kunji and Dr. Anita mHealth tools during their visits with frontline workers compared with those who were unexposed., Results: An evaluation by Mathematica (2014) revealed that exposure to Mobile Kunji and Dr. Anita recordings were associated with significantly higher odds of consuming iron-folic acid tablets (odds ratio (OR) = 2.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.8-3.1) as well as taking a set of three measures for delivery preparedness (OR = 2.8, 95% CI = 1.9-4.2) and appropriate infant complementary feeding (OR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.0-3.5). CARE India's Community-based Household Surveys (2012-2017) demonstrated significant improvements in early breastfeeding (OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.5-1.78) and exclusive breastfeeding (OR = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.33-1.62) in addition to birth preparedness practices. BBC Media Action's Usage & Engagement Survey (2014) demonstrated a positive association between exposure to Mobile Kunji and Dr. Anita and exclusive breastfeeding (58% exposed vs 43% unexposed, P  < 0.01) as well as maternal respondents' trust in their frontline worker., Conclusions: Significant improvements in RMNCHN-related knowledge and behaviours were observed for Bihari women who were exposed to Mobile Kunji and Dr. Anita. This analysis is unique in its rigorous evaluation across multiple data sets of mHealth interventions implemented at scale. These results can help inform global understanding of how best to use mHealth tools, for whom, and in what contexts., Study Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT02726230., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors have completed the ICMJE Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare no other competing interests., (Copyright © 2020 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)

Background: Despite increasing focus on health inequities in low- and middle income countries, significant disparities persist. We analysed impacts of a statewide maternal and child health program among the most compared to the least marginalised women in Bihar, India., Methods: Utilising survey-weighted logistic regression, we estimated programmatic impact using difference-in-difference estimators from Mathematica data collected at the beginning (2012, n = 10 174) and after two years of program implementation (2014, n = 9611). We also examined changes in disparities over time using eight rounds of Community-based Household Surveys (CHS) (2012-2017, n = 48 349) collected by CARE India., Results: At baseline for the Mathematica data, least marginalised women generally performed desired health-related behaviours more frequently than the most marginalised. After two years, most disparities persisted. Disparities increased for skilled birth attendant identification [+16.2% (most marginalised) vs +32.6% (least marginalized), P  < 0.01) and skin-to-skin care (+14.8% vs +20.4%, P  < 0.05), and decreased for immediate breastfeeding (+10.4 vs -4.9, P  < 0.01). For the CHS data, odds ratios compared the most to the least marginalised women as referent. Results demonstrated that disparities were most significant for indicators reliant on access to care such as delivery in a facility (OR range: 0.15 to 0.48) or by a qualified doctor (OR range: 0.08 to 0.25), and seeking care for complications (OR range: 0.26 to 0.64)., Conclusions: Disparities observed at baseline generally persisted throughout program implementation. The most significant disparities were observed amongst behaviours dependent upon access to care. Changes in disparities largely were due to improvements for the least marginalised women without improvements for the most marginalised. Equity-based assessments of programmatic impacts, including those of universal health approaches, must be undertaken to monitor disparities and to ensure equitable and sustainable benefits for all., Study Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT02726230., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors have completed the ICMJE Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare no other competing interests., (Copyright © 2020 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)