Reaching the Poor: Challenges for Child Health in the Western Pacific Region

The WHO Western Pacific Region has achieved impressive gains in child survival, but reaching poor or underserved communities with existing life-saving interventions remains one of the biggest challenges in reducing child mortality. The Region is thus seeking to integrate a pro-poor focus into child survival-related programmes. This publication is a step in that direction. Primarily targeting national programme managers and policy-makers working on child survival in countries and areas in the Western Pacific Region, this book aims to increase awareness of the relationship between child health, poverty and equity, and suggests strategies to address those links, with reference to the Region in general and more particularly to countries with high child mortality. It also seeks to provide an evidence base for the implementation of actions outlined in the WHO/UNICEF child survival strategy to assist Member States in designing and implementing policies and programmes to improve child survival, with an appropriate focus on poor and underserved areas and groups.