global health photo

photography byPaul Joseph Brown

MATERNAL HEALTH IN INDIA & BANGLADESH

GLOBAL HEALTH PHOTO

Global Health Photo principal Paul Joseph Brown was commissioned by the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS) to document maternal health programs in India and Bangladesh. He spent two weeks in the Shivgarh region of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, and a week in the Gaibandha and Rangpur regions of northern Bangladesh, visiting rural villages in the company of health care workers and researchers, and photographing pregnant women and families with infants.

While maternal death rates have declined dramatically in recent decades, maternal and infant mortality remains one of the most challenging issues in global health.

•In 2013, 289,000 women died worldwide from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, or approximately 800 every day.

•For every woman who dies in childbirth around 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease – approximately 10 million women each year.

•Most of these deaths can be prevented through skilled care at childbirth and access to emergency obstetric care.

•More than 135 million women give birth per year, with about 20 million of them experiencing pregnancy-related illness after childbirth.

•99% of maternal deaths occur in the developing world, constituting a huge burden on fragile, low resource health care systems and limiting resources for economic development.

•Almost 3 million infants die in their first month of life, and prematurity is the leading cause of death up to age 5.

•2.6 million infants are stillborn each year.

•16 million girls aged between 15-19 give birth each year, accounting for more than 10% of all births globally. In low and middle income countries complications from pregnancy and childbirth is the leading cause of death among girls 15-19.

•Lack of access to skilled care is the main obstacle to better health for mothers, further exacerbated by a global shortage of qualified health workers.

Seattle based photojournalist Paul Joseph Brown has worked on assignment in 17 countries, on five continents, covering wars, revolutions, famine and genocide, and won some of the highest national and international awards for photojournalism, including nine nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. He has documented poverty and global health challenges throughout Central America, Asia, and Africa.

Combining a documentarian’s understanding of how to distill a complex story, a journalistic sixth sense for what the public needs to know, a social worker’s ability to connect with diverse people in difficult circumstances, and a photographer’s skill at creating powerful imagery regardless of the subject matter, Brown founded Global Health Photo to provide powerful visual narratives that move people to change the way they look at the world.

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