Countdown has much to celebrate as 2024 draws to a close. This year marked numerous milestones, including our largest annual meeting to date, followed by productive data dialogue in countries. We had several opportunities to advocate at the global level, published 33 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and our second cohort...
WorldPop, the University of Southampton-based organization which leads Countdown’s geospatial data & analysis center, marked its 10th anniversary in October and has published several new resources relevant to Countdown’s mission. The event, Mapping the Future of Spatial Demography, brought together experts, researchers, and policymakers to explore the evolving role of...
One more thing to celebrate this year is that the Countdown team seems to have welcomed more newborn babies than usual. We have counted at least four, with Assane from APHRC and Shelley and Brittany from Johns Hopkins University plus one more person welcoming new children. We are trying...
Following the 2024 country annual meeting in April, the Countdown Ethiopia Country Collaboration team, led by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, disseminated key analytical outputs. This effort aimed to inform stakeholders, influence policy, and improve health outcomes in Ethiopia. The objectives of...
On December 12, 2024, Countdown to 2030 organized a dissemination meeting on maternal health and immunization indicator coverage in Somalia, leveraging routine health facility data-derived denominators. The meeting was held in collaboration with the Ministry of Health-Somalia and the Capital University of Somalia, as part of the Somalia Country Collaboration...
Ghana is making strides in improving the availability of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health + nutrition (RMNCAH+N) data, though challenges remain. Despite significant improvements in antenatal care (ANC) coverage, similar progress in skilled delivery and postnatal care has yet to be realized. The district health information management system...
The Countdown to 2030 project conducted a data analytics training workshop on reproductive, maternal, and child health indicators in Mogadishu, Somalia, from December 10 to 11, 2024. The training, aimed at enhancing data analysis skills, brought together members of the Countdown Somalia country collaboration team from the Ministry of Health...
The 8th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2024) held in Nagasaki, Japan, brought together global experts to address pressing health systems challenges. Among the research showcased was a study by the Countdown to 2030 Data & Analysis Center for Effective Coverage, presented by Safia Jiwani, a Countdown researcher from...
The complete results from part one of the urban health study are now available online, and some results from part two were recently presented at the Health Systems Research Symposium. Journal of Urban Health Supplement Countdown undertook a multi-country study in sub-Saharan Africa to understand how living in urban slums...
Effective Coverage of Modern Contraceptive Use in Ethiopia
We are excited to spotlight the inspiring stories from our inaugural Countdown to 2030 Fellowship Program! Launched in 2023, the fellowship aims to build research and analytical expertise to monitor and track progress in delivering lifesaving interventions for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N) across Countdown...
This post expands on comments made by Cheikh Faye and others during a webinar organized by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in November 2024. Dr. Faye is director of the West Africa office for the African Population and Health Research Center and director of Countdown to 2030....
On Friday, November 1, 2024, the Countdown to 2030 Uganda Country Collaboration team, which includes representatives from the Ministry of Health’s Uganda National Expanded Program on Immunization (UNEPI) and Makerere University School of Public Health, held a hybrid immunization evidence dissemination meeting. The session was titled “Using Routine Health Facility...
On October 3, 2024, the Zimbabwe Countdown collaboration team participated in the country’s Ministry of Health and Child Care technical meeting on National Maternal and Perinatal Deaths Surveillance and Response as a member of the National Technical Working Group on Reproductive Health. The meeting’s objectives were to review the statistics...
Causes of death among older children and adolescents 5 19 years in the Magu Health and Demographic Surveillance Study Tanzania 1995 2022
From October 28th to 31st, The Countdown collaboration team of Chad organized an analytical workshop on Indicators of Maternal Deaths and Unsafe Abortion at the University of N’Djamena. This workshop brought toge the different key stakeholders such as the Faculty of Human Health Sciences of the University of...
U C Rapport technique Dakar_260324 (2)
From October 15 -17, 2024, the Countdown to 2030 project team conducted a technical support supervision visit to Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the Institute of Population Studies-University of Liberia (IPS-UL), aimed to improve data quality and promote data use in health decision-making. On Tuesday, October 15,...
From October 16 to 18, 2024, Guinea hosted the second quarterly coordination meeting of the Multisectoral Technical Committee (CTM) for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH-N). The event was held in Conakry with the participation of 97 stakeholders out of 112 expected, including sectoral ministries, civil...
Official Country Profiles – ANC Readiness_completed_aug12022_for_website
Higher institutional birth rates and improved analytic methods are making it more feasible to use health facility data to estimate maternal mortality and stillbirth in sub-Saharan Africa. Countdown researchers from 10 African countries gathered in Tanzania in September to compare data and identify strategies for improving data analysis and use....
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This blog post expands on comments that Jennifer Requejo made at MOMENTUM and the Child Health Task Force (CHTF)’s live event on September 16, 2024. Dr. Requejo is a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Senior Monitoring and Evaluation specialist at the Global Financing...
Key Insights on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health Indicators in Zimbabwe between 2019-2023
This blog post expands on comments that Agbessi Amouzou made at PMNCH’s Accountability Breakfast in September 2024. Dr. Amouzou is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and leads Countdown’s effective coverage data & analysis center. Watch a recording of the event: As the World...
On September 17 – 18, 2024, the Countdown to 2030 project team held a technical meeting on Improving the Measurement of Maternal and Perinatal Mortality Rates in the Population through Health Facility Data at Johari Rotana Hotel, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The objectives of the meeting included; Sharing and discussing...
This blog post presents key findings from Roland Mady’s presentation at the International Conference on Children and their Families, using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys which took place September 2-3, 2024, in Bristol, UK. Mady is a researcher with Countdown to 2030 and a research associate at the Johns Hopkins...
Countdown to 2030 Maternal and Newborn Data Quality Assessment in Uganda Dissemination Meeting Report
This blog post by Godfred Adero , a Countdown researcher, summarizes key findings from the urban health study in Nairobi, Kenya. Adequate neonatal Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) services are critical to ensure that newborn lives are saved and neonatal mortality targets are met. Countless newborn lives are still lost in...
From August 26-30, 2024, the Countdown to 2030 project on Immunization Coverage and Inequalities held its first annual multi-country analytical workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The workshop gathered over 50 experts, including researchers, academics, and public health professionals, from 26 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa to address the critical issues of...
On Friday, August 02, 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo country collaboration team organized a meeting to present and share the analysis of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health indicators (CHARTBOOK). The Chartbook is a collection of graphs with key results and interpretations. Chaired by the Secretary General for...
Following Countdown 2030’s annual meeting, held in Kigali from April 22 to 26, 2024, the country teams led by ISSP, organized a meeting with various members of the Technical Working Group (TWG). The results were produced using routine data from health facilities related to maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent reproductive...
From August 26 – 30, 2024, Countdown’s Immunization Coverage and Inequalities: Strengthening of Evidence and Analytical Capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa Project will hold a multi-country analysis workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The workshop’s purpose is for country teams to finalize and synthesize their results from the different analyses and develop...
https://www.countdown2030.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CHART-BOOK-SIERRA-LEONE.pdf
For the past two decades, health priorities in Tanzania have focussed on children under-five, leaving behind the older children and adolescents (5–19 years). Understanding mortality patterns beyond 5 years is important in bridging a healthy gap between childhood to adulthood. We aimed to estimate mortality levels, trends, and inequalities among...
On Jul 25, 2024, The Immunization Coverage and Inequalities Project: Strengthening of evidence and analytical capacity in sub-Saharan Africa held a progress review workshop with the 26 collaborating country teams and representatives from Gavi, WHO and UNICEF. The virtual workshop aimed at reviewing health facility data received from the collaborating...
As part of the multi-country study on urban health, Countdown collaborations in Senegal, Zambia, Kenya, and Burkina Faso collected data around the experiences of maternal and newborn health care among women residing in urban slums. Urban health is a pressing concern, particularly in rapidly growing cities where unplanned settlements often...
July 22 – 26,2024, The Countdown team provided technical support at a report writing workshop for the Quality of Care: Health Facility Assessment. This is in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Health, National Council for Population and Development, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, UNFPA Kenya, WHO Kenya among...
Countdown 2024 Country Annual Meeting Report
Ouagadougou Policy Brief-French (F)
On July 4, 2024, the Ghana Countdown to 2030 project collaboration team held a national dissemination workshop to share findings and progress of the work done. Overall, this dissemination highlighted the importance of using data to drive discussions and ensure evidence-based decisions. The workshop provided a forum for key stakeholders...
Following the 2024 annual meeting in April, country collaboration teams have finalized short reports from key reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N) indicators in 26 African countries between 2019 - 2023. These chartbooks outline data quality assessment, national coverage of antenatal care, maternal and newborn health,...
Achieving gender equality remains a critical goal for efforts in global development and health, yet data to inform progress toward this goal has often been absent or unused. To advance gender measurement on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N), Countdown to 2030, is collaborating with the...
Lusaka Urban Health Study Policy Brief 30_01_2024 (3)
From June 26 to 27, 2024, Countdown to 2030 researchers participated in the Global Public Health International Conference convened by University of Manitoba’s Institute for Global Public Health in Winnipeg, Canada. The conference aimed at reflecting on how the University of Manitoba and other academic institutions can effectively contribute to...
The International Journal for Equity in Health (IJEqH) invites authors to submit abstracts for their upcoming collection, “Progress in reducing inequalities in health-related SDGs in the post-pandemic.” Priority will be given to authors from low- and middle-income countries, with the possibility of requesting a reduction or waiver of publication fees. ...
On May 28, 2024, the multicountry study on immunization coverage and inequalities held a virtual inception meeting with various stakeholders including representatives from the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC); Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and representatives from African country collaborations. The immunization study’s...
Improving Monitoring and Measurement of Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health Countdown to 2030 started in 2003 as a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration, in response to the challenge of the health-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015. At the time, it was known as Countdown to 2015. Countdown is a collaboration of academics...
Calling for better primary health care for children to achieve SDGs for child survival Renewed investments in primary health care systems to provide essential services to all children are needed, especially for countries that are off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 3.2.1, concludes a new technical brief released...
Routine health facility data are essential sources for real-time monitoring of the coverage of health services for national and local planning and programming. They are frequent, timely and available at local levels. However, they are under utilized due to data quality issues and challenges in determining appropriate denominators for coverage...
The Countdown 2030 for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health (CD2030) has launched in 2024 a Fellowship Program to strengthen research and analytical capacities for monitoring and tracking the progress of life-saving interventions for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) in CD2030 collaborating countries in Africa. Every...
Seven positive outlier countries reduced maternal and newborn mortality during 2000-2020 through: Increasing contact with maternity services; Improving quality of those services; Reducing fertility and increasing access to safe abortion; and Strengthening government commitment, resources, financing, and progressive implementation and learning. These findings from the maternal newborn health (MNH) exemplars...
From April 22- 26, 2024, Countdown to 2030 convened its 2024 annual meeting in Kigali, Rwanda under the theme, “Producing Reliable National and SubNational Health Statistics with a Focus on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N).” The meeting was hosted by African Population and Health Research Center...
One of the researchers from the Countdown collaboration in Senegal was recently appointed the country’s Minister of Health and Social Action. Dr. Ibrahima Sy was the principal investigator of the Countdown urban health study in Senegal and recently published about this work (Spatial and Socioeconomic Inequalities in Cesarean Section Deliveries...
Ten emerging African researchers will form the 2024 cohort of the Countdown to 2030 (CD2030) fellowship program, participating in a yearlong training program to advance research on a wide range of topics related to Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N). Below is the list of selected...
https://www.countdown2030.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nairobi-Urban-Health-Policy-Brief.pdf
African researchers – and particularly Countdown to 2030 country collaboration team members – are encouraged to submit their analyses of routine health facility data for inclusion in a side session at the African Population Conference which will be held in Malawi in May 2024. The session will discuss effective methods...
Do Residents of the Slums of African Capitals Have Access to Cesarean Sections? The Example of Dakar (Senegal)
CAM 2023 – Ethiopia Analysis Results CAM 2023 – Ethiopia Communications
CAM 2023 – Burkina Faso MNH CAM 2023 – Burkina Faso Malnutrition
The USAID MOMENTUM project published a new factsheet about all three types of country profiles – reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH), equity, and early childhood development. This two-page document describes what the country profiles are, why they are valuable, who should use them, and how they can...
A new report synthesizes the learning from the analysis conducted during and after the annual meeting held in 2023. Some key findings were that: Reporting rates were high in most countries, and districts with extreme outliers were uncommon, but some issues with internal consistency of the data were apparent. Calculation...
CAM 2023 synthesis report Feb 2024 formatted
The Niger country collaboration has been successful at maintaining a long-running scientific collaboration, producing high-quality research for multiple audiences, and sharing this information with decisionmakers. Download the data uptake series in English Download the data uptake series in French Niger is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s countries which has been repeatedly...
