Impact of health needs on dynamic adjustment of women′s health goals in Beijing and Shanghai

  Objective  To assess the impact of health needs on the adjustment of health goals among women in Beijing and Shanghai and to explore the feasibility of evaluating the impact quantitatively.

  Methods  We systematically collected policy documents and reports on sensitive indicators for maternal health needs and goals published by governmental agencies between 2000 and 2017 and quantified the degree of dynamic adjustment on maternal health goals. Spearman correlation, linear regression and other methods were used to analyze the relationship between health needs-based dynamic adjustment on maternal health goals and the variation in maternal mortality.

  Results  In 2017, the dynamic adjustment ratios of health care goals for the women in childbearing and pregnant/puerperal period were 10.0% and 25.0% in Beijing and were 20.0% and 25.0% in Shanghai, respectively. During the period from 2000 to 2017, the dynamic adjustment ratios of maternal health care goals for the women in Beijing and Shanghai increased from 0.0% and 0.0% to 17.9% and 21.3%, respectively. There was no correlation between the dynamic adjustment ratios of health care goals and maternal mortality among the women in Beijing and Shanghai (both P > 0.05).

  Conclusion  The level of health needs-based adjustment on health care goals for the women in Beijing and Shanghai is relatively low and the impact of the health needs on the adjustment of health goals is not obvious. The quantitative indexes adopted in the study are feasible for the evaluation on the status of maternal health care system and could be applied in other researches.