title: Reproductive health indicators for China's rural areas.
abstract: We report community-based development of reproductive health indicators for China's rural areas. To generate these indicators, we sequenced two participatory techniques known as nominal group process and Delphi survey methodology. Nominal group process entailed grassroots reproductive health workers' generating indicators, followed by refinement and prioritization of these indicators through a consensus-building Delphi process among nationally and internationally known reproductive health experts. Major criteria for the indicators were practicality, feasibility, and measurability within China's rural areas. We explain the importance of establishing these indicators for application in rural China and other developing countries as a complement to the World Health Organization's reproductive health indicators for global monitoring; present the identified indicators; and describe lessons learned from field testing in low-, middle-, and high-income counties of China's countryside.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA. wangc@umich.edu
authors.forename: Caroline C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Kaining
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Shusheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Songyuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Shaoxian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Virginia C
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001723:Birth Rate; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003697:Delphi Technique; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008428:Maternal Mortality; D008429:Maternal Welfare / Q000145:classification* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011247:Pregnancy; D018456:Reproductive Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D012423:Rural Health; D016387:Women's Health; D014933:Women's Rights; D014944:World Health Organization