Fatalism or vigilance? Exposure to infant and maternal deaths and subsequent use of maternal health services in Malawi.

ABSTRACT: In developing contexts, where formal health services are still expanding, understanding what factors discourage individuals from using health services is critical to advance population health. A long theorized, but rarely investigated, conjecture is that in high-mortality contexts, exposure to death can beget fatalism, or even foster distrust of formal healthcare, locking families into cycles of low use of health services. A counter perspective, however, suggests exposure to death can encourage individuals' health vigilance, corresponding with their higher use of health services. We test these competing ideas by analyzing the associations between women's intimate exposure to death in the context of pregnancy and delivery via (1) a sister's maternal death and (2) an infant child's neonatal

SUBMITTER: Lungu E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11465936 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature