Maternal Mortality

Topic outline

• General

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  Maternal Mortality
  

   

  Welcome to the course on Maternal Mortality. Maternal morbidity and mortality remain major problems in many parts of the world - one of the most important threats to Public Health. The purpose of the course is to provide the people who may be able to help tackle the problem with the knowledge and skills to do so. We will focus on identifying the size of the problem, the causes, and the evidence base behind interventions to improve the situation. We will end by identifying ways to implement evidence based solutions in your own setting.
  

  This course - originally a Peoples-uni Open Online Course - has been prepared by, and contains material from, Peoples-uni, an educational initiative providing online Public Health capacity building for health professionals. The course provides basic introduction to key aspects of the discipline of public health.

  How to navigate the course

  Each section comprises a set of resources that we think you will find interesting - click on the collections of resources in each section. There is a forum in each topic for reflection, and there is a quiz at the end to check your understanding of the concepts.

  We encourage you to reflect on what you have learned or comment on the course. When you click on the hyperlink in each forum labelled reflection, you will be able to add a new topic or respond to a previous one. You may want to share your learning from this and other readings, comment on the topics from your own experience, comment on others' posts, or provide feedback on how we can improve the content and presentation.

  In the final section you will see that you can gain a Certificate of Completion - the requirements for this are to access the resources and post a reflection in each section, and pass the quiz at the end. This is a self-directed course, to be taken at your own pace.
  

  The course was developed by Diederike Geelhoed and Katwesige Wycliff

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  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

• Topic 1
  Introduction to maternal health
  

   

   

  Learning outcome:

  Understand the magnitude and implications of maternal mortality for your local population, and of problems in data collection and accuracy.'
  

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    Resources for Topic 1: Introduction to maternal health Page

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    Reflection on topic1 Forum

    Make forum posts: 1

    Reflect on what might be the most useful measures of Maternal Mortality of relevance to your population? Can you think of ways of improving data accuracy? What are the implications of maternal mortality for development in your population?

• Topic 2
  Epidemiology and causation
  

   
  
  

  Learning outcome:
  Understand how the epidemiology of maternal mortality (including the role of cultural, social, and behavioural factors), as well as the structure, functions and performance of your health services system (local and national levels) are relevant to the causation and potential policy and delivery solutions.
  

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    Resources Topic 2: Maternal mortality - epidemiology and causes Page

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    Reflection on Topic 2: Maternal mortality - epidemiology and causes Forum

    Make forum posts: 1

    Reflect on how the distribution of maternal mortality varies according to time, place and person, and how this knowledge can help understand the causes.

• Topic 3
  Evidence-based solutions in the Health Service
  

  
  Learning outcome:

  Understand how the structure, functions and performance of your health services system (local and national levels) might be relevant to the causation and potential policy and delivery solutions in relation to maternal mortality. 
  

   

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    Resources for Topic 3: evidence based solutions within the health service Page

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    Reflection on Topic 3: evidence based solutions within the health service Forum

    Make forum posts: 1

    Do you think that issues described in the papers provided in the Resources section of this Topic are relevant to the health services of your local setting? Are there lessons for your health services in terms of solutions that might contribute to the ability to reduce maternal mortality?

• Topic 4
  Evidence-based Solutions outside the health service
  

   

  Learning outcome:

  Explore and analyse evidence-based policy and delivery solutions outside the health system that can be implemented to reduce the burden of maternal mortality.
  

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    Resources for Topic 4: Evidence-based Solutions outside the health service Page

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    Reflection on Topic 4: Evidence based solutions outside the health service Forum

    Make forum posts: 1

    Reflect on the solutions from the evidence base (the course resources) that you think could work in your country.  Remember to consider how reliable you think the findings are, and whether the findings are applicable to the country you work in.

• Topic 5
  Implementing an Intervention
  

   
  

  Learning outcome:

  Reflect on how you might use the information from the course to develop a plan for the implementation of an intervention to reduce the burden of maternal mortality in your setting.

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    Resources for Topic 5: Implementing an intervention Page

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    Reflection on Topic 5: Implementing an intervention Forum

    Make forum posts: 1

    Taking account of the resources in this Topic, reflect on the best way to implement a strategy to reduce maternal mortality in your setting

• Quiz and certificate

  You can earn a certificate of completion if you access each of the resource pages above, and pass the quiz below.

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    Quiz on Maternal Mortality

    View Receive a grade Receive a passing grade

    Take this quiz to test your knowledge of the resources. There are 15 questions with a pass mark of 11 correct answers.