Table 3.

Summary table*

Review details	Number of studies in review	Geographic setting for review	Review focus & objectives	Community mobilization activities	outcome of interest (number of relevant included studies)	Key findings/ outcomes
George et al[39] 2015 – Systematic Review	4	LMICs	Maternal & Newborn Health – examining how the awareness of interventions that promote awareness of rights affects demand/use of care to affect maternal and newborn health outcomes	Public meetings, events with community and staff, household visits, women's groups, awareness campaigns, local leader meetings	ANC (4) & early ANC (1)	Four studies demonstrated increase in ANC use with the interventions, though one was not statistically significant.
Kearns et al[41] 2016 - Review	8	Global	ANC & PNC – identifying innovative approaches to improve ANC & PNC	Women's groups, lady health workers, committees with local leaders	ANC & PNC – 3 total	Women's groups can improve accessibility and acceptability of ANC and PNC by building consensus, creating a support network, and providing relevant health and pregnancy related information.
Kuhlmann et al[42] 2016 – Review of Evidence	32	Global	Sexual, Reproductive, & Maternal Health – assessing the effectiveness of community mobilization interventions	Home visits for education; peer-facilitated and community/staff led participatory learning groups	ANC (16) & early ANC (1)	Involving community members in interventions led to better outcomes including increases in at least one or more ANC visits and increases in booking early ANC visits.
Lassi et al[23] 2019 – Systematic Review	33	LMICs	Newborn Health – comparing community health educational strategies	Educational interventions - one-to-one & group counseling	ANC (18)	Analyses in the review demonstrated community health interventions and both one-to-one and group counselling increased ANC utilization.
Mangham-Jeffries et al[43] 2014 – Systematic Review	48	LMICs	Maternal & Newborn Health – determining the cost-effectiveness of strategies to improve maternal and newborn health	Women's groups, home visits	ANC (2)	Studies reported increased use of ANC as well as new ANC users. Overall, findings suggest that women’s groups are a cost-effective intervention.
Marston et al[44] 2013 – Systematic Review	15	LMICs	Maternal & Newborn Health – examining the effectiveness of community participation interventions in maternal & newborn health	Women's groups; evidence-based dialogue model; participatory methodologies	ANC (7)	Community participation interventions including women’s groups and participatory dialogues had positive effects on ANC uptake, though these were not always statistically significant. There is a lack of evidence about why these interventions do/do not succeed.
Mbuagbaw et al[45] 2015 – Systematic Review	34	Global	ANC & early ANC – assessing the effects of health system and community interventions to improve ANC	Mass media campaigns. Social mobilization. Information-education-communication (IEC).	ANC (23) & early ANC (1)	This synthesis considered outcomes when populations received one or multiple community interventions. Community-based interventions to increase antenatal care included media campaigns, education, and financial incentives. There were high levels of heterogeneity, but most of the pooled analyses found increases in ANC coverage/visits in populations that received an intervention or combination of interventions, though this was not always statistically significant.
Perry et al[47,48,56] [3 sources] 2017 – Review of Evidence	700	LMICs	Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health – examining community-based primary health care to improve MNCH	Home visits, community case management, participatory women's group	ANC (37)	Of the included studies, 34 studies reported increases in ANC, three studies reported no change (or no statistically significant change) in ANC, no studies reported a decrease in ANC [chapter 2].
Prost et al[21] 2013 – Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis	7	LMICs	Maternal & Newborn Health – assessing the effect of women’s groups using PLA	Women's groups and facilitated PLA cycles	ANC (6) & PNC (5)	Two studies reported on how women's groups significantly increased ANC uptake, whereas four did not find significant differences in ANC uptake. One study reported an increase in postpartum checks. One study also reported a statistically significant increase in care-seeking practices in case of a newborn's health problem. Two studies reported a statistically insignificant increase in care-seeking in case of a postpartum problem for the mother, while four reported a statistically insignificant increase in care-seeking in case of a postpartum problem for the newborn.
Sarkar et al[49] 2015 – Systematic Review	8	LMICs	Reproductive Health – analyzing effective community-based interventions to improve reproductive health	Individual and group counseling, community education campaigns, group training, advocacy workshops, sensitization, street plays and drama, youth groups, events	ANC & PNC – 5 total	Three of the initiatives demonstrated improvements in ANC including ANC check-ups by first time mothers. These three initiatives also reported improvements in PNC, with two showing significant improvements in first-time mothers receiving PNC check-ups within 6 weeks of postpartum.
Sharma et al[51] 2018 – Systematic Review	11	South Asia	Maternal Health – comparing the effectiveness of interventions to promote family and community participation in maternal health	Community mobilisers deliver MH education: home care and community care; CHWs community education; women's MH education group; women and men's MH health care education groups	ANC (8)	Community interventions increased attendance of 1+ ANC visit.
Wekesah et al[53] 2016 – Systematic Review	73	Sub-Saharan Africa	Maternal Health – examining the effectiveness of non-drug interventions in improving outcomes in maternal health	1. Community mobilization through women’s groups;	ANC (6) & PNC (1)	For non-drug interventions such as community mobilization and peer-based programs, one study reported a significant increase in ANC and another study found women in the intervention arm were more likely to attend PNC within the first 48 h.
				2. Skilled birth attendants;
				3. Training health extension workers;
				4. Training and deployment of community health development agents;
				5. Traditional birth attendants (TBAs);
				6. Family and community members meetings on health care;
				7. Trained volunteers to provide health care at the community;
				8. Village health teams;
				9. Peer mentors who women are living with HIV
Beck et al [36] 2019 – Systematic Review	19	Sub-Saharan Africa	Maternal & Child Health – understanding how community mobilization interventions for maternal and child health impact empowerment	None listed	ANC (2)	Two studies demonstrated CM increased care-seeking behaviours, two studies demonstrated increased number of ANC visits.
Deshmukh et al [37] 2020 – Integrative Review	47	LMICs	PNC – identifying the determinants of PNC service provision and utilization	Social mobilization as an opportunity for education/ awareness	PNC (unknown)	The reviewers identified social mobilization as an opportunity to increase awareness of PNC services and health complications in the nexus framework they applied to the included studies.
George & Branchini [38] 2017 – Synthesis	26	LMICs	Maternal Health – examining initiatives that promote awareness of rights to quality maternal care	Public meetings, committees, information dissemination	ANC (4)	Three studies demonstrated an increase in ANC uptake with community mobilization initiatives present. An additional study demonstrated an increase in ANC uptake but it was not statistically significant.
Gogia et al [40] 2011 – Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis	13	LMICs	Newborn Health – assessing the effect of community-based neonatal care	Group meetings, community health committees, education sessions, participatory action learning cycles	ANC (5)	One study demonstrated improvement in at least 1 ANC visit.
Muzyamba et al [20] 2017 – Systematic Review	14	Sub-Saharan Africa	Maternal Health for Women with HIV – reviewing the evidence on the role of community mobilization in maternal care for women with HIV	Group/peer support for pregnant women/new mothers	ANC (3)	Three studies reported that peer support for women with HIV increased access to health resources, including ANC.
Parsekar et al [46] 2020 – Narrative Review	Not stated	South Asia	Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Adolescent, & Child Health – collating the evidence on behavior change communication interventions	Information, education, communication/behavior change communication initiative	ANC (1)	This narrative review described the strategies used by one IEC initiative in Nepal but did not report on the outcomes.
Schiffman et al [50] 2010 – Review of Evidence	9	LMICs	Perinatal Health – to describe the effects of community-based intervention packages	Community health committees, group meetings, participatory learning activities, folksongs	ANC (4)	This review focused on presenting mortality-related outcomes and did not report on the outcomes related to changes in care seeking.
Singh et al [55] 2021 – Systematic Review	66	India	Maternal & Child Health – investigating the impact of public health programs on maternal and child health	Trained female health workers (ASHAs) serve as the interface between communities and health facilities and spread awareness on health	ANC (1)	This review presented one study with ASHAs which demonstrated an increase in ANC.
Takah et al [52] 2019 – Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis	8	Sub-Saharan Africa	PMTCT of HIV – examining interventions used to improve male partner involvement in PMTCT	Community meetings (talks, music, dance, dramas)	ANC (1)	This review did not present outcomes related to ANC/PNC care-seeking.
Yuan et al [54] 2014 – Systematic Review	22	LMICs	Maternal & Child Health – collecting evidence on the effects of interventions to reduce maternal and child health inequalities	Participatory women's group	ANC (2)	One intervention in Bangladesh demonstrated a reduction in income inequalities in access to ANC.

LMIC – low and middle-income country, ANC – antenatal care, PNC – postnatal care, PLA – participatory learning and action, HIV – human immunodeficiency virus, PMTCT – prevention of mother-to-child-transmission

*The summary table is organized in two parts – the first half are the 12 reviews that contained a significant level of detail describing the community mobilization that could be synthesized in the rest of this review of reviews, the second half of this table displays the 11 reviews that met inclusion criteria but did not provide additional levels of detail. The information presented in the table reflects what was reported in the included review and does not go into depth of the primary studies included in the reviews.