Accelerating progress for every newborn in Latin America and the Caribbean: A guide for developing national strategic roadmaps for improving newborn health outcomes

Abstract

Over the past decade, significant progress has been made globally and in Latin America and the Caribbean in improving newborn survival. Several global, regional, and national strategies and plans of action have shown that with concerted efforts for implementing evidence-based interventions equitably and universally, newborn health outcomes can be improved. However, gaps remain for advancing care for every newborn with equity. The most vulnerable are the babies born prematurely, with illnesses due to infections or in need of surgical care due to structural congenital anomalies, or with conditions resulting from difficult labor. This guide has been developed with the goal of supporting countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to expedite their efforts to improve newborn health outcomes in the region through national roadmaps. The guide offers contextual information on the burden of neonatal mortality and priority policy areas to be considered for national roadmaps. It also includes a checklist that can be used for assessing the newborn health strategic situation at the national level and provides tips on developing a national strategic roadmap for accelerating newborn health. This document does not provide specific implementation plans for newborn health; each country will need to develop its own strategic implementation based on its current status in terms of policies, data, resources, and needs, to support a robust strategy to achieve its own set goals for newborn health. The information included in this guide is for policymakers, legislators, program officers, and advocates working to improve newborn health outcomes at the su national, national, and regional level. This information may also be of value for national governments, international cooperation agencies, and civil society, to guide the allocation of resources and implementation of targeted interventions in order to improve newborn health outcomes in the region based on a rights and equity perspective in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.