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Celebrating 30 years of maternal and newborn health research at LSHTM

Over the last three decades, research on maternal and newborn health has diversified – in topics, methods, actors and stakeholders, and markers of success. The global agenda has been driven by MDGs and now SDGs, and progress has been celebrated in terms of reductions in maternal and newborn mortality. But much more remains to be done to achieve health and well-being for all mothers and newborns.  Thirty years is also the period over which the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has conducted research on MNH. We are holding a one-day symposium to examine questions on the rationale, methods and impact of our past and present research, and the challenges to be faced in the future.   

Keynote speakers

Dr Anshu Banerjee is currently the Director for the Department of  Maternal, New born, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing in the World Health Organization (WHO). He was earlier the Director (Global Coordination) in the Office of the Assistant Director-General in Family, Women’s and Children’s Health, WHO as well as the WHO Country Representative in Albania and Sudan. While based in Geneva with the Reproductive Health and Research (RHR) Geneva, he was seconded to UNMEER in Accra for the Ebola crisis.  Dr Banerjee holds a PhD in tuberculosis control from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, a Master’s in Public Health for Developing Countries from LSHTM and a medical degree from the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Professor Charlotte Watts is Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Department of International Development (DFID) seconded to DFID from LSHTM where she is Professor of Social and Mathematical Epidemiology. Originally trained as a mathematician, with a Ph.D. in theoretical mathematics from the University of Warwick, she became interested in global health whilst conducting post-doctoral research on the epidemiology of HIV at the University of Oxford. She was Senior Technical Advisor to the WHO 10 country population surveys on women’s health and domestic violence; led the systematic review of the global prevalence and health burden of interpersonal violence, and has been senior researcher on 5 cluster randomised controlled intervention trials in sub-Saharan Africa - showing that violence is preventable. Professor Watts is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Foreign Associate Member of the US National Academy of Medicine. 

This event will be live-streamed and recorded