Free health care for under-fives, expectant and recent mothers? Evaluating the impact of Sierra Leone’s free health care initiative

Table 4 Mean characteristics of women before and after the FHCI

Variables	Pre-FHCI	Post-FHCI	Difference (Post-Pre)	All
ANC Outcome Variables^a
Received skilled ANC during pregnancy	0.963	0.973	0.01	0.968
ANC received at public facility	0.955	0.969	0.014	0.964
Four ANC visits at public facility	0.751	0.771	0.02	0.508
Obs.	2685	5630		8315
PNC Outcome Variables
Health Facility for Delivery
Government facility	0.447	0.501	0.054	0.479
Government hospital	0.12	0.134	0.014	0.129
Government health centre	0.329	0.369	0.04	0.352
Private facility	0.017	0.018	0.001	0.017
Delivery with skilled health worker	0.584	0.636	0.052	0.616
Postnatal care within 48 h of birth in public facility	0.121	0.266	0.145	0.208
Vitamin A given within 2 months of delivery	0.816	0.788	−0.028	0.813
3 courses of DPT received within 12 months of delivery (DPT3) ^b	0.609	0.625	0.016	0.691
Obs.	3968	7970		11,938
Covariates
Age	30.5	28.38	−2.12	29.34
Urban	0.315	0.302	−0.013	0.308
Christian	0.19	0.187	−0.003	0.19
Mother’s education
Primary education	0.127	0.142	0.015	0.133
Secondary education	0.136	0.184	0.048	0.164
Higher education	0.016	0.01	−0.006	0.012
Asset index quintile
Lowest	0.232	0.232	0	0.233
Second	0.194	0.2	0.006	0.199
Middle	0.204	0.202	−0.002	0.199
Fourth	0.215	0.22	0.005	0.218
Highest	0.155	0.147	−0.008	0.15
Eastern Region	0.228	0.213	−0.015	0.221
Northern Region	0.384	0.396	0.012	0.385
Southern Region	0.279	0.277	−0.002	0.281
Western Region	0.11	0.114	0.004	0.113

ISSN: 2191-1991