Domains of male involvement in maternal and newborn health

There is robust evidence that male involvement improves maternal and newborn health outcomes, particularly in low- and middle-income country settings. However, there is an important gap in this evidence base: there is no clear, consistently applied definition of ‘male involvement’. This severely hampers efforts to understand why, or how, effective interventions achieve their impacts. In this project, a student will review what indicators, activities and outcomes are defined as male involvement in the current evidence base. This will involve reviewing studies from two systematic reviews that inform the forthcoming World Health Organization guideline on male involvement in maternal and newborn health, to extract definitions used, intervention activities, outcome indicators, and other relevant data. Exploratory qualitative analysis will be used to group this data into several domains that describe male involvement, with suggested indicators. The project may also involve identifying alignments, gaps and inconsistencies between domains. The student will work with the Global Women’s and Newborn’s Health Group at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne (primarily desk-based research). This project would allow a student to gain experience in gender theory and qualitative analysis methods, with a view to a scientific publication. Findings will make an important contribution to this rapidly growing field.