A method for estimating maternal and newborn lives saved from health-related investments funded by the UK government Department for International Development using the Lives Saved Tool

BACKGROUND: In 2010, the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID) committed through its 'Framework for results for reproductive, maternal and newborn health (RMNH)' to save 50,000 maternal lives and 250,000 newborn lives by 2015. They also committed to monitoring the performance of this portfolio of investments to demonstrate transparency and accountability. Methods currently available to directly measure lives saved are cost-, time-, and labour-intensive. The gold standard for calculating the total number of lives saved would require measuring mortality with large scale population based surveys or annual vital events surveillance. Neither is currently available in all low- and middle-income countries. Estimating the independent effect of DFID support relative to all other effects on health would also be challenging. METHODS: The Lives Saved Tool (LiST) is an evidence based software for modelling the effect of changes in health intervention coverage on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child mortality. A multi-country LiST-based analysis protocol was developed to retrospectively assess the total annual number of maternal and newborn lives saved from DFID aid programming in low- and middle-income countries. RESULTS: Annual LiST analyses using the latest program data from DFID country offices were conducted between 2013 and 2016, estimating the annual number of maternal and neonatal lives saved across 2010–2015. For each country, independent project results were aggregated into health intervention coverage estimates, with and in the absence of DFID funding. More than 80% of reported projects were suitable for inclusion in the analysis, with 151 projects analysed in the 2016 analysis. Between 2010 and 2014, it is estimated that DFID contributed to saving the lives of 15,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth with health programming and 88,000 with family planning programming. It is estimated that DFID health programming contributed to saving 187,000 newborn lives. CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible to estimate the overall contribution and impact of DFID’s investment in RMNH from currently available information on interventions and coverage from individual country offices. This utilization of LiST, with estimated population coverage based on DFID program inputs, can be applied to similar types of datasets to quantify programme impact. The global data were used to estimate DFID’s progress against the Framework for results targets to inform future programming. The identified limitations can also be considered to inform future monitoring and evaluation program design and implementation within DFID. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-017-4748-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.