In the new Discontinu-Cities project, funded by the FWO, professors Lenka Beňová (ITG, Antwerp) and Alexandre Delamou (African Center of Excellence at the University Gamal Abdel Nasser of Conakry, Guinea) join forces to explore the complex dynamics of provision and understand the use of maternity care in cities in Sub-Saharan Africa. They will do this through geospatial analysis of big data: they will innovatively combine secondary data from 149 African cities on infrastructure (housing, roads, health facilities), territorial conditions (topography, urbanization, air pollution) and social determinants of health (poverty, empowerment of women).
On the other hand, to describe a city in more detail, they will collect data from health facilities where women can give birth and from women living in different communities in Conakry, a city of two million people in Guinea, West Africa. The results of this project will be crucial in identifying barriers to timely and quality care for pregnant women and their babies, and better understanding these challenges in other cities. Governments will be able to use the findings to address issues specific to their cities to improve survival and well-being.
