HighlightsWe examine chicken health and production constraints with backyard and semi-intensive producers in Ethiopia.Participants identified 9 categories of constraints: the most important overall were disease and access to feed.Despite generally detailed knowledge of disease risk factors, biosecurity measures were lacking or ineffective.Producers reported difficulty accessing veterinary services, despite their proximity to such expertise.Although many of these constraints may be viewed as technical issues to be overcome, our findings highlight underlying social factors that must also be addressed.

Maternal mortality rates remain unacceptably high, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. Nigeria is responsible for about 20% of all global maternal deaths, with a Nigerian woman having a 1 in 18-lifetime risk of dying because of pregnancy or childbirth. Evidence-based strategies have been proposed, including family planning (FP), to reduce the incidence of maternal mortality, which is the only strategy that reduces the proportion of high-risk pregnancies and births and reduces exposure to the risk of maternal mortality. Despite these benefits, there is still a high unmet need for family planning services. The present study assesses the choices and availability of FP services in Lagos state health facilities, examines the challenges, barriers, and cultural restraints to modern contraception, and proffers solutions that will help increase FP uptake in the state. The study also presented supply-and-demand interventions that are most effective at increasing voluntary contraceptive uptake in Lagos state.

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Background: Controlling family planning (FP) has long been the goal of most nations and cultures. FP aims to keep the population under control while also improving living conditions. Many countries, especially the developing ones, which Nigeria is among, face the challenge of dealing with overpopulation due to high fertility rates. FP is considered a veritable way of dealing with high fertility problems. The present study assesses the choices and availability of FP services in Bauchi state health facilities. Methods: This study leveraged Noi Polls census data on Health Facility Assessment for Bauchi state. We conducted a descriptive analysis and analyzed the primary health facility assessment data using counts and percentages. Result: Findings of the study revealed that 80% of the health facilities studied in Bauchi State offer FP services. 91.2% and 77% of the facilities in the urban and rural areas, respectively, offer FP services. This translates to 8.8% and 23% of health facilities in urban and rural areas, respectively, not offering FP services. Based on proportions, assessing the facilities that offer FP by ownership shows that public health facilities are more into FP services (80%) compared to the private-for-profit (80%) health facilities and facilities owned by NGOs and faith-based organizations (83.3%). By facility level of care, 87.5% of secondary healthcare facilities in Bauchi State offer FP services compared to primary healthcare facilities (79.5%). FP services provided in the studied facilities include counseling, contraceptive injectables, oral contraceptive pills, male and female condoms, implants, Intra-Uterine Contraceptive Devices IUCD, sterilization methods, and natural/traditional methods. Conclusion: Considering that over 80% of health facilities considered in this study locates in rural Bauchi state, with over 22% not offering FP clearly shows a gap that the government must address. The distribution of FP services across the state's local government areas is inequitable as some local governments have more health facilities offering the services than others, thus giving residents in those areas a higher chance of benefitting from those services.

Background: A health system comprises various elements such as infrastructure, human resources, data systems, and financial systems. Adequate infrastructure, including buildings, equipment, supplies, and communication, is crucial to health services. In Nigeria, some healthcare facilities do not have the needed human and infrastructure resources to manage specific conditions, causing multiple referrals and endangering patients' lives. The present study assessed the availability of in-patient beds and the referral capacity and emergency response of the healthcare facilities in Lagos State. Methods: This study leveraged Noi Polls census data on Health Facility Assessment for Lagos state conducted between November 2020 and December 2021. The survey was conducted in 1256 health facilities which are 53.8% of the entire health facilities in Lagos State, and 53.8% of the population of Lagos State was used to compute the bed/population ratio. A descriptive analysis was done to present the findings. Result: Findings revealed that Lagos State has eight (8) beds per 10,000 population which is below the global average of twenty-six (26) beds per 10,000 population and the recommended five (5) beds per 1,000 population by the World Health Organisation. The results further reveal that healthcare facilities in Lagos State need additional 2,861 beds to reach the Sub-Saharan average in-patient beds of twelve (12) per 10,000 population and an additional 31,953 beds to reach the recommended five (5) per 1,000 populations by the World Health Organization. Conclusion: Infrastructures such as beds, emergency rooms, and the emergency transportation services needed to transport patients to other facilities are lacking in most of the healthcare facilities in Lagos State. Secondary healthcare facilities in the State cannot discharge their roles, especially handling referred patients, as they lack bed space to care for in-patients and emergency rooms to carter for emergency cases.