POLICYMAKING TO IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH.

The article presents the authors' comments on the paper "Collapsing the Vertical-Horizontal Divide: An Ethnographic Study of Evidence-Based Policymaking in Maternal Health," by Dominique P. B'ehague and Katerini T. Storeng published in a previous issue of this journal, and a response to the comments by B'ehague and Storeng. The authors comment on three factors affecting health programs--the methods used, how policymakers choose the evidence that determines how programs are designed, and the use of randomized controlled trials in generating data for new maternal health programs. According to B'ehague and Storeng, the authors have misinterpreted their result with the assertion that the article concludes that advocacy efforts for maternal health would benefit from additional evidence.