Maternale en neonatale gezondheid in stedelijke gebieden

We participated in the OnTime study of travel time to obstetric care in Nigeria.

• Geographical accessibility to functional emergency obstetric care facilities in urban Nigeria (The Lancet Global Health, 2024)

• Developing policy-ready digital dashboards of geospatial access to emergency obstetric care (Health and Technology, 2024)

• Socio-spatial equity analysis of relative wealth index and emergency obstetric care accessibility in urban Nigeria (Communications Medicine, 2024)

• Interactive dashboard showing travel time access to Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) facilities (2024)

• A geospatial database of close-to-reality travel times to obstetric emergency care in 15 Nigerian conurbations (Scientific data, 2023)

We are exploring the urbanicity gradient and what it means for maternal and newborn health in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Advancing the frontiers of geographic accessibility to healthcare services (Communications Medicine, 2023)

• Exploring the urban gradient in population health (BMJ Global Health, 2023)

• Neonatal and perinatal mortality in the urban continuum: a geospatial analysis of the household survey, satellite imagery and travel time data in Tanzania (BMJ Global Health, 2022)

Our stakeholder analysis of maternal health in the city of Antwerp (Belgium) is now available.

• Maternal Healthcare in Antwerp: A Stakeholder Analysis (Zenodo, 2022)

We co-authored a commentary calling for more extensive multisectoral approaches to addressing global urban maternal and perinatal health inequities, which includes case studies from Rotterdam and Kampala. It is available in the journal Cities & Health.

• Multisectoral approaches to addressing global urban maternal and perinatal health inequities (Cities & Health, 2023)

Our study of 22 large African cities included nearly 20,000 women. We concluded that few cities achieved good performance across the three services within the maternal continuum of care (antenatal, childbirth and postnatal care). Most cities showed inconsistent levels of maternal care utilisation and content across the continuum of care. Cotonou and Accra relatively showed the best performance and Nairobi and Ndjamena the worst.

• A tale of 22 cities: utilisation patterns and content of maternal care in large African cities (BMJ Global Health, 2022)

The objective of this study was to understand levels of neonatal mortality in 21 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and compare urban and rural areas. We also looked at Tanzania in particular, because its mortality rate among newborns is higher in urban areas compared to rural.

• A growing disadvantage of being born in an urban area? Analysing urban–rural disparities in neonatal mortality in 21 African countries with a focus on Tanzania (BMJ Global Health, 2022)

Our mixed methods study of six maternity wards in urban areas of four countries (Guinea, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic provided important insights into the way in which use and provision of care in referral hospitals in cities was affected by disruptions.

• A mixed-methods study of maternal health care utilisation in six referral hospitals in four sub-Saharan African countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (BMJ Global Health, 2022)

• ‘We are not going to shut down, because we cannot postpone pregnancy’: a mixed-methods study of the provision of maternal healthcare in six referral maternity wards in four sub-Saharan African countries during the COVID-19 pandemic (BMJ Global Health, 2022)

We participated in a study of travel time to obstetric care and patterns of referral between health facilities  in Lagos Nigeria.

• Patterns, travel to care and factors influencing obstetric referral: Evidence from Nigeria's most urbanised state (Social Science & Medicine, 2021)

• Influence of travel time and distance to the hospital of care on stillbirths: a retrospective facility-based cross-sectional study in Lagos, Nigeria (BMJ Global Health, 2021)

• Critical comparative analysis of data sources toward understanding referral during pregnancy and childbirth: three perspectives from Nigeria (BMC Health Services Research, 2021)

• An assessment of geographical access and factors influencing travel time to emergency obstetric care in the urban state of Lagos, Nigeria (Health Policy and Planning, 2021)

• “In cities, it’s not far, but it takes long”: comparing estimated and replicated travel times to reach life-saving obstetric care in Lagos, Nigeria (BMJ Global Health, 2021)

Baby deaths in Tanzania: being born in a city no longer increases their chances of survival (The Conversation, 2023)

Infants born in cities ‘twice more likely to die’ (SciDev.Net, 2022)

Lagos traffic creating 'life or death' situations for women trying to reach hospital – report (The Guardian, 2021)