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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1514522
This article is part of the Research Topic Health and Nutrition in The First 1000 Days of Life View all 7 articles

Challenges in Rural Maternal Health: How Received Public Services and Policy Awareness Affect Health Knowledge and Practices

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Purpose: This study evaluates the effectiveness of rural maternal health services in improving pregnant women's health knowledge, practices, and outcomes in northwestern China, focusing on the roles of received public services and policy awareness.Methods: Baseline surveys were conducted in rural Shaanxi Province in 2021 and 2023, involving 1,152 pregnant women from 85 townships, selected via multistage cluster random sampling. Data were collected through structured face-to-face interviews, covering health knowledge and behaviors. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the impact of maternal health services.Results: Both received public services (Coefficient: 0.130, 95% CI: 0.015-0.246) and policy awareness (Coefficient: 0.114, 95% CI: 0.001-0.227) significantly improved nutrition and health knowledge but had limited impact on prenatal checkups or health outcomes. Policy awareness (OR: 3.826, 95% CI: 2.743-5.337) significantly increased picking up free folic acid, however, the rate of taking folic acid remained low.While received public services and policy awareness improved nutrition and health knowledge, and policy awareness increased picking up free folic acid, they did not significantly influence prenatal checkups or health outcomes. More targeted efforts are needed to foster consistent health practices and improve maternal health outcomes in rural areas.

    Keywords: received public services, Policy awareness, Health Knowledge, Health practices, Pregnancy, rural areas

    Received: 21 Oct 2024; Accepted: 24 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Yang, Chen, Xie, Liu, Wu, Li and Nie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jingchun Nie, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China

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