Dr. Abdallah Ibrahim, CPHSchool of Public Health

University of Ghana

Post-doc Coordinator – Accelerate Project

Project Title

Accelerating progress towards attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 and 5 in Ghana through basic health systems functioning strengthening (Accelerate Project)

Project Duration: 2011 - 2015

Accelerate Project - Ghana

Accelerate involves six PhD researchers in three disciplines, namely: Clinical Epidemiology, Medical Anthropology, Health Policy & Health Systems

The PhD researchers focusses on health care improvements to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Ghana.

Accelerate Project – Ghana/Netherlands Team

The Accelerate Project

Explore “how” and “why” clinical decision making for maternal and newborn care by frontline providers (doctors, clinical, public and community health nurses and midwives) is done in the health system

Explore what interventions would be most appropriate to support and improve the quality of clinical care decision making.

Accelerate Project - Progress

Project is currently at a “mixed-stage”, including: Completed data collection Completed draft manuscripts Data analyses

Peer-reviewed article publications in: BMC PlosOne Health Policy and Planning Health Research Policy and Systems

Sample Progress of (Accelerate) PhD studiesStudy Short title Study design

(data source)Outcome Statistical method Progress so far

Study I Risk factors for neonatal mortality

Cross sectional (DHS)

Neonatal mortality

Multilevel logistic regression

Published

Study II Neonatal data validation

Routine hospital data

Data accuracy Error rate & % of missing data estimation

Published

Study III Risk factors for LBW

Cross sectional (DHS)

Low birth weight Multilevel logistic regression

Published

Study IV Trends in childhood mortality: impacts & challenges of health programs

Longitudinal study (DHS)

Trends in childhood mortality

Trend analysis & Poisson regression

Completed

Study V Effect of maternal health insurance status on utilization of the continuum of care

Cross sectional (DHS)

Antenatal, Skilled delivery and postnatal care utilization

Logistic regression Completed

Study VI Variations in neonatal mortality across 49 Sub-Saharan Africa countries

Cross sectional (World Health Organization & World Bank)

Variation in neonatal mortality

Control chart, and spatial analysis

Completed

Study VII

Prediction model for stillbirth

Hospital data Stillbirth Logistic regression Data quality check & analysis

Accelerate Project Stakeholders

National level Ghana Health service Ministry of Health

Sub-national and Facility level Health care centers Frontline health workers (Nurses, doctors,

midwives) District health managers

Individual level Pregnant women

Stakeholders are involved at all levels

Stakeholder engagement strategies

Accelerate researchers have used various methods to engage the key stakeholders in their research.

They include: Ethnography Individual meetings Dialogues

Key research findings Accelerate is advancing for stakeholder actions

Findings

Community socioeconomic deprivation positively associated with neonatal death regardless of individual characteristics

Findings

Dwelling in rural area, community poverty level, illiteracy level, safe water coverage & Community healthcare access increased the risk of having LBW infant

KT Challenges in Accelerate

KT-related challenges in Accelerate incliude differences in progress/timeline among the researchers

Difference in timeline impedes identifying and packaging an integrated project message

KT Products generated or accomplished

Activities generated or accomplished under Accelerate Policy briefs Shared findings at meetings Presentations and poster contest at

conferences Additional KT products/activities planned

Stakeholder dissemination with KTNet-Africa Media products

Support from KTNet-Africa

The End

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