%0 Journal Article
%T Prioritizing WHO normative work on maternal and perinatal health: a multicountry survey
%A Cordelia EM Coltart
%A Jo£¿o Souza
%A Ahmet M G¨¹lmezoglu
%J Reproductive Health
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1742-4755-8-30
%X An online multi-country survey was used to identify WHO guidance priorities for the next five years in the field of maternal and perinatal health. WHO regional and country offices were requested to respond the survey and obtain responses from Ministries of Health around the world. In addition, the survey was disseminated through other networks and relevant electronic forums.A total of 393 responses were received, including 56 from Ministries of Health and 54 from WHO/UN country offices. 75% of responses were from developing countries and 25% from developed countries. Guidance on strategies focusing on 'quality of care' issues to reduce all-cause maternal/perinatal mortality was considered the most important domain to target, which includes for instance guidance to improve access, dissemination, implementation of effective practices and health professionals' education.This study provides a panorama of international priority guidance needs for maternal and perinatal health. Although clinical guidance remains a priority, there are other areas related to health systems guidance, which seem to be even more important. Overall, the domain ranked highest in terms of greatest need for guidance was around quality of care, which included questions related to educational needs, access to and implementation of guidance.Improving maternal and newborn health is a key area of work for the international health community and especially for the World Health Organization (WHO). Since the Millennium declaration in 2000 and the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals, the focus on improving maternal and newborn health has intensified. In this context, the recently launched United Nations Global strategy for women's and children's health (September 2010) is providing an added impetus to the effort of saving more than 16 million women and children over the next four years [1].A core WHO activity is the development of evidence-based guidelines for setting global standards and prov
%K Prioritization
%K multi-country survey
%K maternal health guidelines
%K perinatal health guidelines
%K guideline development
%U http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/8/1/30