Evaluation of a pilot program that integrated prenatal screening into routine antenatal care in western rural China:...

We evaluated a large-scale pilot program in Shaanxi Province, western rural China, which integrated prenatal screening interventions for congenital abnormalities into routine antenatal programs.

We surveyed 1,597 mothers who gave birth between 2009 and 2016. Adopting the interrupted time-series design, we evaluated the program's impact on awareness, coverage, and cost, by comparing two counties with only supply-side policies, and two counties from the neighbouring province with no policies; and among the two counties with both supply- and demand-side policies and the two counties with only supply-side policies. We adjusted the sampling procedure and women's background characteristics. We conducted subgroup analyses by women's education.

After one year of implementation, the coverage of prenatal foetal aneuploidies and B-ultrasound screening rose by 25.0% and 23.5%. The program's supply-side policies attributed to 17.2 percentage points (90%CI 7.8-26.6%) and 27.3 percentage points (90%CI 16.2-38.5%) in coverage, and contributed to a higher median cost of 796.5RMB (90%CI 595.5-997.5). These significantly affected women with secondary education and above. However, the program's demand-side measures, that is, vouchers, seemed to be effective only in the mountainous regions, which raised awareness, and increased coverage of prenatal foetal aneuploidies screening by 28.6 percentage points (90%CI 13.4-43.8%), while not increasing costs. These significantly affected women with primary education and below. Education-related inequalities widened post-program in counties with only supply-side policies, but no inequalities existed in counties with demand-side policies.

Shaanxi's program made a pilot study to other provinces of China to integrate antenatal services. Government subsidies might be more effective in targeting specific geographic locations and people with primary education and lower.