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Abstract
Background: Africa will miss the maternal and neonatal health (MNH) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets if the current trajectory is followed. The African Academy of Sciences has formed an expert maternal and newborn health group to discuss actions to improve MNH SDG targets. The team, among other recommendations, chose to implement an MNH research prioritization exercise for Africa covering four grand challenge areas. Methods:The team used the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) research prioritization method to identify research priorities in maternal andnewbornhealth in Africa. From 609 research options, a ranking of the top 46 research questions was achieved. Research priority scores and agreement statistics were calculated, with sub-analysis possible for the regions of East Africa, West Africa and those living out of the continent. Results: The top research priorities generally fell into (i) improving identification of high-risk mothers and newborns, or diagnosis of high-risk conditions in mothers and newborns to improve health outcomes; (ii) improving access to treatment through improving incentives to attract and retain skilled health workers in remote, rural areas, improving emergency transport, and assessing health systems' readiness; and (iii) improving uptake of proven existing interventions such as Kangaroo Mother Care. Conclusions: The research priorities emphasized building interventions that improved access to quality healthcare in the lowest possible units of the provision of MNH interventions. The lists prioritized participation of communities in delivering MNH interventions. The current burden of disease from MNCH in Africa aligns well with the list of priorities listed from this exercise but provides extra insights into current needs by African practitioners. The MNCH Africa expert group believes that the recommendations from this work should be implemented by multisectoral teams as soon as possible to provide adequate lead time for results of the succeeding programmes to be seen before 2030.
Highlights
The deceleration in average annual rates of reduction of maternal mortality[1] and neonatal mortality indicators[2] signal a need to do more to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets
Higher Average Expert Agreement (AEA) correlated with higher Research Priority Scores (RPS), which indicates that experts agreed on the research priorities that scored highest, and those that had lower scores may have had a mix of high and lower scores
This work establishes a maternal and neonatal health research priority list for Africa, covering the four grand challenge areas, in which science and research are crucial in accelerating implementation and developing innovations
Summary
The deceleration in average annual rates of reduction of maternal mortality[1] and neonatal mortality indicators[2] signal a need to do more to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets. Most sub-Saharan African countries[5] will not meet the SDG target of 12 or fewer newborn deaths per 1,000 births and are at risk of missing targets for maternal mortality reduction[5]. Africa will miss the maternal and neonatal health (MNH) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets if the current trajectory is followed. The African Academy of Sciences has formed an expert maternal and newborn health group to discuss actions to improve MNH SDG targets. Methods: The team used the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) research prioritization method to identify research priorities in maternal and newborn health in Africa. Research priority scores and agreement statistics were calculated, with sub-analysis possible for the regions of East Africa, West Africa
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