The involvement of CHWs in the state of UP has a long history since the 70s and currently it is the key strategy to percolate primary health care to the masses through the Front-Line Workers like the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and the Angan Wadi Workers (AWW). Besides the AWWs, the current lot of CHWs in UP are the ASHAs who are the daughters-in-law of a family that resides in the same community that they serve as the grassroots health worker since 2005 when the NRHM was introduced in the EAG states. UP is one such Empowered Action Group (EAG) state. The current study explores three crucial variables of the messages Ante Natal Care (ANC), birth preparedness and newborn care. These three variables are reflected through the role of health personnel through messages in these components provided to the Recently Delivered Women (RDW) or mothers in four districts of UP. From the catchment area of each ASHA, two RDWs were selected who had a child in the age group of 3 to 6 months. Through this profile, the messages on ANC, birth preparedness and newborn care dealt in a triad of modalities consisting of the place, personnel and recollection of these messages. The message profiles of the RDWs on these stages are reflected upon to give a picture that represents the entire state of UP. The relevance of the study assumes significance as data on the modalities of messages for ANCs, birth preparedness and newborn care for recently delivered mothers are not available even in large scale surveys like National Family Health Survey 4 done in 2015-16. The percentage of women covered for the four ANCs along with coverage of broad areas are given not exclusively but clubbed together. The three modalities like place, recollection and type of health worker who gave the message. The current study gives an insight in to these three modalities exclusively for the messages separately. The current study is basically regarding the message profiles of RDWs during their pregnancies. The above-mentioned reasons regarding dissemination of messages reflects poorly in the Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Ratios (MMR) in India and especially in UP. The current IMR in India is 33 where as it is 41 in UP which means 8 points higher per 1000 live births (SRS, May 2019). Similarly, the current MMR in India is 122 where as it is 216 in UP which really reflects poorly for UP in comparison to the data at national level (SRS, November, 2019). These mortalities are the impact indicators and such indicators can be reduced through long drawn a process that includes effective delivery of messages to RDWs during their pregnancies. This is the area that the current study details out.A total of four districts of Uttar Pradesh were selected purposively for the study and the data collection was conducted in the villages of the respective districts with the help of a pre-tested structured interview schedule with both close-ended and open-ended questions. In addition, in-depth interviews were also conducted amongst the RDWs and a total 500 respondents had participated in the study. The results showed that almost all the RDWs in the four districts had received the ante natal care messages at home and by the ASHAs. Gonda district fell behind in recollection of ANC messages among the four districts. Regarding newborn care messages, again Gonda district faltered among the four districts. The newborn care message had a gender issue related message which asked whether the RDW received a message to care of the unborn boy or girl equally. Gonda district performed poorly in this indicator as well.Regarding the messages on birth preparedness, Saharanpur led the list and Gonda district again lagged behind. This meant that the ASHAs of Gonda district are poor planners among the four districts.
RDW, ASHA, NRHM, EAG, CHW, ANC, Newborn
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