Maternal health research outputs and gaps in Latin America: reflections from the mapping study
- PDF / 354,861 Bytes
- 3 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 51 Downloads / 142 Views
COMMENTARY
Open Access
Maternal health research outputs and gaps in Latin America: reflections from the mapping study Emily Vargas-Riaño1, Víctor Becerril-Montekio2* , Francisco Becerra-Posada3 and Mario Tristán4
Abstract As part of the MASCOT/WOTRO multinational team conducting the maternal health literature mapping, four Latin American researchers were particularly interested in analysing information specific to their region. The mapping started with 45,959 papers uploaded from MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, LILACAS, PopLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Knowledge. From these, 4175 full texts were reviewed and 2295 papers were subsequently included. Latin America experienced an average maternal mortality decline of 40% between 1990 and 2013. Nevertheless, the region’s performance was below the global average and short of the 75% reduction set in Millennium Development Goal 5 for 2015. The main outcomes show that research on maternal health in the countries where the most impoverished populations of the world are living is not always aligned with their compelling needs. From another perspective, the review made it possible to recognize that research funding as well as the amount of scientific literature produced concentrate on issues that are not necessarily among the main causes of maternal deaths. Even though research on maternal health in Latin America has grown from an average of 92.5 publications per year in 2000-2003 to 236.7 between 2008 and 2012, it’s not satisfactorily keeping pace with other regions. In conclusion, it is critical to effectively orient research funding and production to respond to the health needs of the population. At the same time, there is a need for innovative mechanisms to strengthen the production and uptake of scientific evidence that can properly inform public health decision making. Keywords: Maternal health, Literature mapping, Latin America, Research funding, MDGs
Background – The mapping study and Latin America A literature mapping study is generally useful to identify relevant articles in a particular area of interest. It differs from a regular systematic review in that rather than searching for the best answers in solving a particular problem, a mapping study aims to identify how the theme or the area of interest has been approached by research. Thus, mapping studies may even disregard methodological soundness as secondary [1]. Based on this methodology, the MASCOT/WOTRO maternal health literature mapping [2] reviewed publications stemming from 2000 to 2012 on maternal health issues in low and middle income countries (LMICS) [3]. * Correspondence: [email protected] 2 National Institute of Public Health (Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública)/ Centre for Health Systems Research, Segunda Privada Colorines 9, Colonia Santa María Ahuactatitlán, Cuernavaca, Morelos CP 62100, México Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
This mapping study was carried out by a group of 15 reviewers from eight countries across all five continents. As has already been report
Data Loading...
