Access to Health
The Access to Clinical and Community Maternal, Neonatal and Women’s Health Services (ACCESS) Program was a 5-year global program, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), that improved the health and survival of mothers and their newborns in more than 25 countries. Awarded to Jhpiego in 2004, Program partners were Save the Children, Constella Futures, the Academy for Educational Development, the American College of Nurse-Midwives and IMA World Health. The ACCESS Program ended 31 December 2009.
USAID’s follow-on project for maternal and newborn health was MCHIP, awarded to Jhpiego and partners in September 2008. Click here to be redirected.
The current award to end preventable child and maternal mortality is the Maternal and Child Survival Program.
ACCESS worked with USAID missions, governments, nongovernmental organizations, local communities and partner agencies in developing countries to expand coverage, access and use of maternal and newborn health services and improve household health behaviors and practices.
The Program promoted a continuum of care in women’s health across the life cycle—focusing on women of reproductive age and extending, where opportunities existed, to younger and older women. ACCESS also improved health delivery by strengthening the facility, connecting the household to the facility, and mobilizing family and community members to make the links necessary to care for mothers and newborns.
The Program improved access to knowledge of newborn health with the development and dissemination of tools and materials. This included the 2006 ACCESS-supported U.S. launch of the Lancet Maternal Survival Series, and production of a comprehensive learning resource package (Best Practices in Essential and Basic Emergency Maternal and Newborn Care).
ACCESS also worked with in-service partners to train more than 1,000 providers in essential and basic emergency obstetric care and to improve the quality of obstetric services in hospitals and clinics. To improve care for low birth weight newborns, the Program supported host governments to implement and scale up facility-based Kangaroo Mother Care in hospitals and health centers in five countries.
