Maternal, Child and Reproductive Health

It is estimated that 2950,000 women die every year as a result of complications before, during or after birth. Furthermore, despite a considerable reduction in mortality among children under five, the probability that a child will die in the first few days of life is still extremely high (in 2015, some 5.9 million children under 5 years of age died, 45% of them during the first month of life). Since most of these maternal and infant deaths are preventable and occur in developing countries, this situation represents the greatest inequality in global health today. Improving maternal and infant health is one of the least successful Sustainable Development Goals (SDG3 Health) to be completed by 2030.

Main Lines of Research

At ISGlobal, our research focuses mainly on five key areas: identifying the primary causes of maternal and infant mortality in low-income countries, where the lack of reliable information limits the design of appropriate health strategies and innovating child survival strategies in resource-poor settings; improving and expanding strategies for the prevention and control of malaria in pregnant women because of the increased risk of death from the disease in this population, as well as childhood malaria; studying the impact of HIV co-infections, as well as the impact of drug resistance to antiretrovirals during pregnancy; evaluating the effectiveness of maternal immunisation for vaccine-preventable diseases, as well as the acceptability; and determining the effectiveness of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination programmes in adolescent girls in terms of preventing cervical cancer, a disease that causes 275,000 deaths a year and mainly affects developing countries. Finally, the study of emerging diseases during pregnancy (Zika, COVID-19) and of prevention and treatment strategies is one of the priority lines of our research and translation program.