Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2016
Document Type
Thesis
Department
International Relations
First Advisor
Jean Krasno
Second Advisor
Kimberly Gamble-Payne
Keywords
Maternal, mortality, health
Abstract
A staggering number of women die from preventable deaths each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. India hosts the greatest number of actual maternal deaths in the world, although Nigeria’s ratio of maternal deaths to live births is greater than India’s. This thesis focuses on the experience of these two countries in order to determine if India’s governmental policies, level of government corruption, and traditional practices directly lead to its comparably better maternal health statistics. India has demonstrated lower ratios of maternal mortality and more consistent improvement in maternal health indicators than Nigeria as a result of stronger political support for maternal health, more effective government policies to improve accessibility of maternal healthcare, and fewer instances of government corruption. Nigeria must increase protections for citizens coming forward with complaints against government practices. Both countries will benefit from doubling their efforts to get the issue of maternal health on the agenda of state-level politicians, as well as strengthening strategies to recruit and train local women to serve in their own communities to improve the urban-rural divide in maternal health indicators.
Recommended Citation
Quarles, Rachel, "Maternal Mortality: A Policy Comparison Between Nigeria and India." (2016). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/602