The isolated Suba and Luo communities of Mfangano Island on Lake Victoria in Western Kenya experience some of the highest maternal and neonatal mortality rates in East Africa. To understand factors at the heart of this complex challenge, researchers from the University of Minnesota have partnered with one of the most remote and underserved populations in the world.
Published in Global Public Health, the Monitoring Maternal Emergency Navigation and Triage on Mfangano (MOMENTUM) Study uses an innovative adaptive design to measure delays and barriers faced by mothers and newborns seeking emergency care.
The MOMENTUM study points to an urgent need for community education efforts regarding awareness of emergency conditions, implementation of streamlined hand-off systems for emergency referrals, as well as policy level interventions to address the recurrent health worker strikes. Particularly, in light of frequent facility closures and staffing interruptions, the study suggests a critical role for community-based care coordinators. The study suggests that these recurrent gaps can, in fact, be bridged by local interventions that flexibly connect the dots for families and providers across dynamic care environments, syncing communication and facilitating timely transport to available resources, and above all, advocating for patients.
