Overview
The Global Women’s and Newborn’s Health Group is co-led by Professor Caroline Homer and Dr Joshua Vogel. The Group aims to improve the health and well-being of women, newborns and families in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Group’s areas of focus are:
- Improving the coverage and quality of sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn healthcare, with an emphasis on timely, respectful, person-centred care
- Targeting major causes of maternal morbidity and mortality, particularly prevention and treatment of postpartum haemorrhage, hypertensive disorders, peripartum infections, unsafe abortion, indirect causes, mental health and nutritional issues
- Addressing the major causes of perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality, particularly stillbirth, preterm birth, low birth weight and neonatal sepsis
- Providing expert guidance and support to strengthen the maternity care workforce, particularly through midwifery education and development.
- Prioritising women’s and newborn’s health in humanitarian crises and public health emergencies, including environmental change, civil disruption and disease outbreaks.
We address these areas through:
- Leading and supporting high-quality primary research and knowledge synthesis, particularly in limited-resource settings
- Providing technical advice through collaborative partnerships with institutions, UN agencies and governments in the Asia-Pacific region
- Offering research supervision and training opportunities
- Recognising that protecting the sexual and reproductive health and rights of individuals empowers all members of a community
Our working group recognises that individuals have diverse gender identities. Terms such as pregnant person, childbearing people and parent can be used to avoid gendering birth, and those who give birth, as feminine. However, because women are also marginalised and oppressed in most places around the world, we have continued to use the terms woman, mother or maternity. When we use these words, it is not meant to exclude those who give birth and do not identify as women.
Hear more from Global Women’s and Newborn’s Health Group Co-Head, Professor Caroline Homer AO, in Episode 6 of our How Science Matters Podcast.
