Gender influences on child survival, health and nutrition: a ... - Unicef

<strong>Gender</strong> Influences On Child Survival, Health And Nutrition: A Narrative Review
METHODS
We conducted a search via the Discover Database which combines 33 of the leading health and social
sciences databases (such as Medline, CINAHL, Global Health, Science Direct, Scopus, Sociological
Abstracts, among others). After some initial searches we honed the search terms and based the search
on the following terms (see below). We tested the terms in order to identify the abbreviations that
yielded the broadest results.
<strong>Gender</strong> layer
<strong>Gender</strong> OR
Wom* status OR
Wom* role OR
M* role OR
Wom* rights OR
Wom* labour OR
Wom* working OR
Maternal education
OR
Maternal literacy OR
Masculin* OR
Family relation* OR
Parent*
Health terms layer
Infant* OR Child* AND
Health
AND
Nutrition* OR
Immunization OR
Survival OR
Health seeking behaviour
OR
Treatment OR
Barriers to healthcare OR
Home based care OR
Child care OR
Breastfeeding OR
Breast feeding OR
Feeding
Location layer
Developing countr* OR
Global South OR
Middle income countr*
OR
Low income countr* OR
Africa OR
Latin America OR
Asia OR
Poverty OR
Poor countr* OR
Third World
By combining the first two layers, the search yielded 176,649 results. Focusing on the global South, we
refined the search by employing the third ‘location’ layer, which yielded 12,943 results. Finally we
narrowed the list of results using the inclusion criteria (literature from 1970 onwards) and to those
which included the search terms in the abstract or the subject terms/keywords since these results were
more likely to have most relevance for the literature review. This left a list of 3,911 results to be
scanned. We scanned these results and briefly assessed them to judge their usefulness for the topic in
hand. Studies were excluded if they focused on aspects of child poverty in the industrialised world or
when they did not mention gender. Others were removed due to duplication. The diagram below shows
the number of studies which were included in the Endnote Library used as the bibliography for this
project. The total number of references in the Endnote Library are 1,330, however these also include
studies broadly relevant to gender and health.
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