Call for Papers: Quality of maternal health care

We are thrilled to announce a new partnership between PLoS Medicine and the Maternal Health Task Force that will assemble a Collection of open access articles on “quality of maternal health care.”

View the Call for Papers and the MHTF-PLoS Collection page for all the details.

The continued need for attention and action to improve maternal health is indisputable.

Each year still close to 300,000 women unnecessarily die trying to give birth—a staggering number that ensures the Millennium Development Goal on maternal mortality will regrettably not be met. However, important progress has been made in some areas, and with new global pledges and a more reliable scientific understanding of what it takes to prevent deaths and disability among women and children worldwide, the time to accelerate progress to achieve maternal health goals is now.

The MHTF-PLoS Collection on Maternal Health welcomes primary research (both quantitative and qualitative) and incisive commentary related to quality of maternal health services broadly. Research articles should not be merely descriptions of activities but should include evaluation of the impact of initiatives after their implementation. Commentary articles on quality of maternal health care, targeted to the PLoS Medicine Essay or Policy Forum sections, must be novel and well-argued.

Articles will stand the best chance of inclusion in the 2011-2012 Collection if they are submitted by 1 April 2012.  More information is available at the Collection page: www.ploscollections.org/maternalhealth