Improving maternal and child health in south Ethiopian Rift Valley

 PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Ethiopia is a country with high maternal and child mortality, both of which are mainly associated with reproductive health problems, infectious diseases, malnutrition, poor dietary practices, food insecurity, and inadequate health services and their uptake. Diets in youngsters in low and middle-income countries are generally of poor quality despite the importance of this period of life, especially for girls. The problem is severe for access to balanced foods is limited and unequal. Additionally, alternative large scale fortification programmes have not been promoted except for the salt iodization. There are inequities in maternal health status within and between the regional states of Ethiopia due to diverse socio-cultural and economic differences and are revealed in terms of the uptake of reproductive and maternal health services, particularly antenatal care (ANC), skilled birth attendance, and postnatal care (PNC), which are the proxy indicators for monitoring the progress of maternal outcomes, including perinatal & maternal mortality. Poor, illiterate, and rural women are less likely to use the existing healthcare services and the inequality is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Disparities in the use of these services have also been linked to supply-side limitations (access, quality, and affordability of services) as well as demand-side limitations (mainly operating at the individual and community levels) - known as the social determinants of health - according to prior studies in the area. Moreover, the burden of (neglected) tropical diseases has relevant epidemiological, psychosocial and economic impacts upon people in endemic areas i.e., cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a debilitating disease mainly affecting children due to Leishmania aethiopica. At present, no registered curative treatment for CL exists. The helminth and malaria burden also mainly affects children though the latter is on the verge of elimination. The result is at one hand an age shift in malaria from under five towards school aged children affecting their health and affecting pregnant women. On the other hand, malaria presents currently a limited burden which needs a locally adapted feasible elimination strategy based on experiences elsewhere (and to avoid re-emergence or outbreaks). The sub-project contributes directly (if scaled up) to the attainments of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, mainly the target 1 and 2 of SDG 2. In addition, SDG 3 (ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages; target 1-4) will not be achieved without such intervention activities.

The College of Medicine and Health Sciences is among the colleges with a limited number of PhDs in Arba Minch University. There is no doctoral program except for one initiated recently by the school of public health (2021). This limits the capacity of staff in conducting demand driven public health and clinical research that might contribute to attainments of SDGs.