Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This review paper aims to review Global MCH initiatives and note trends across the last five decades (1974–2023). As an organizing framework, MCH initiatives and programs have been classified into five categories: Global Health Conferences, Declarations or Strategies; Global Health Surveys; Global MCH Programs; Global MCH related Data Initiatives or Working/Advisory Groups; and Global MCH Partnerships or Networks. Over 50 Global MCH initiatives and programs have been implemented during this period. The first International Conference on Primary Health Care and the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 initiated a new era of global public health. International conferences building on Alma Ata with a focus on population health and MCH, along with global surveys to measure the health status of populations across countries and global working groups to analyze these data, emerged over the next decades. Global MCH partnerships also emerged for advocacy and coordination of an increasing number of efforts to improve maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and well-being—towards achieving the Millennium (2000–2015) and Sustainable (2016–2030) Development Goals. Four trends were noted across these five decades: (1) MCH Mortality decreased but unacceptable inequities persist with COVID-19, ongoing conflicts and climate change threatening these gains. (2) Implementation of primary health care (PHC) as envisioned by Alma Ata in 1974 continues to see a debate about selective versus comprehensive programs. (3) As mortality declined (Survive), the field expanded focus to child well-being (Thrive) and across preconception through adolescents (Transform). (4) Global MCH issues are relevant across high-income (HIC) and low-middle income (LMIC) settings to achieve health and well-being of all women and children everywhere. “Historical research is of central relevance to an understanding of public health in the present. Current developments cannot be understood without a knowledge of the past.” ( https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres/centre-history-public-health/about ) This paper aims to review maternal and child health (MCH) initiatives and programs and note trends across the last five decades of Global MCH. During the last 50 years Maternal and Child mortality has decreased substantially. However, unacceptable inequities, both across and within both high-income and low- and middle-income countries remain. As mortality declined (Survive) the field has expanded its focus to morbidity and child development (Thrive) and across the MCH lifespan from preconception through adolescents (Transform). This expanded focus and on-going disparities suggest substantial unfinished agendas across global maternal and child health. Programs need to address primary health care and the social determinants of health if we are to see further improvements in the health of women and children.
Author: Debra Jackson
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,590
OpenAlex ID: W4411716351