Preterm Birth Through the Lens of Quality, Equity and Dignity
October 2-4, 2018
Kigali, Rwanda
The Annual Symposium on Preterm Birth is designed to stimulate deep discussion about supporting healthy births in East Africa and California. This year the research symposium was held in Kigali, Rwanda, from October 2-4, hosted by the UCSF Preterm Birth Initiative, in partnership with the East Africa Preterm Birth Initiative.
Worldwide each year, 15 million babies are born too soon, and 1 million of those babies do not survive. Premature birth is an important aspect of family and infant health. The Annual Symposium on Preterm Birth explored what quality, equity and dignity mean in the context of preterm birth, and looked for solutions to address this issue. The meeting brought together a global research team and community of stakeholders to learn about critical issues with and from each other, strengthening partnerships between researchers and policy-makers.
We chose this theme recognizing that in 2017, the World Health Organization launched Quality Equity Dignity: A Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health which includes 10 countries with the goal to halve maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths in health facilities within 5 years. This perspective is essential for supporting the health of mothers and newborns.
The UCSF Preterm Birth Initiative is honored to facilitate cross-collaboration between the East African and California arms of our initiative as well as convene East African partners and stakeholders, including representatives from the Ministries of Health of Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, and community advisory board members from California. At the symposium we explored topics such as respectful maternity care, interventions for improving quality of care, collaboration to leverage knowledge into power and quality improvements through translational research.
