To mark World Health Day, held every year on 7 April and arranged by the World Health Organization (WHO), events will be taking place tomorrow around the world at global, national and regional levels.
This year, World Health Day is adopting the theme ‘Mother and Child Health’.
Through these events the World Health Organization aims to create momentum that compels governments, the international community, civil society and individuals to take action to improve the health and well-being of mothers and children – and especially to help save the lives of millions of mothers and children who are dying each year during childbirth and early childhood.
The Partnership for Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health, the Healthy Newborn Partnership and the Child Survival Partnership will be highlighting the World Heath Day’s theme – ‘Make Every Mother and Child Count’ – during a high-level meeting in New Delhi, India.
The University of Aberdeen’s IMMPACT project is a global research initiative whose ultimate goal is to improve maternal health and survival in developing countries by providing rigorous evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of safe motherhood intervention strategies and their implications for equity and sustainability.
Professor Wendy Graham, the Principal Investigator of IMMPACT and Director of the Dugald Baird Centre for Research on Women’s Health, will attend the meeting in New Delhi to raise awareness of IMMPACT’s progress to the key policy-makers and representatives from international organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank who will be present.
Speaking ahead of the event, Professor Graham said that the meeting is a key event for IMMPACT to share the lessons it has learnt to date and to raise the profile of IMMPACT's continuing research activities in the field of maternal health. She said: “The ambition of IMMPACT is timely and appropriate for this 21st century, during which preventable maternal death should, indeed, become history.”
Professor Graham will be accompanied by Dr Sohinee Bhattacharya who will be participating in the World Health Day ‘Information Exchange Fair on Mothers, Newborn and Children’ being organized at Maurya Sheraton Hotel, New Delhi (7–9 April). Dr Bhattacharya will share and discuss information on the aims, objectives and on-going research activities in the initial three IMMPACT focus countries of Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Ghana, as well at the international technical partner institutions, including the Dugald Baird Centre for Research on Women’s Health at the University of Aberdeen – the co-ordinating centre for IMMPACT.