Healthcare communication and services for mother and child

While communication components reflect the demand side of existing health care, the service components represent the supply side of the same. In spite of the fact that communication and service share a proportional relationship, the actual mechanism behind the process is hardly understood in its totality. This book endeavours to disentangle the complex web of the supply-demand framework involving communication and service and management components of health care with special focus on the mother and child. It has looked at the effects on mother and child particularly when there is a resource crunch, where services are not easily available due to poor access to service centres, unavailability of well equipped/trained service providers and a host of other reasons. Added to these factors are the cross-cultural (communication) gaps in the form of culture-induced hesitations like the collective shyness of women to visit male gynaecs that contribute towards the greater 'culture of poverty'. As this book provides a holistic picture of mother and child health in India across communication, management and service aspects, it is useful for a large number of readers, users and stakeholders. It not only provides a conceptual framework for systems related studies but also warrants researchers and program managers to conduct further disaggregate investigations at micro and macro level; and helps policy makers, program managers and community level workers to design and implement focussed interventions.