Maternal and Maternal-child Analytics - Linked cohort system (MAMA-LINK)
We aim to advance maternal and child health research through the development of a comprehensive and extensive Mother and Child Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system.
Objectives
- Monitor Trends: Track trends in childhood communicable and non-communicable diseases, including determinants such as demographic, social, behavioral, and economic factors, as well as maternal conditions across the life span.
- Explore Maternal health: Investigate maternal multi-morbidity and pregnancy experiences influencing maternal health during birth and beyond.
- Test and evaluating intervention: Critically assess potential maternal interventions capable of improve mothers and child health outcomes across a life span
- Build Capacity: Enhance the capabilities of hospital medical care providers and establish sustainable methods for collecting and storing patient health records that allow usage and sharing for research purposes.
- Improve Health Services: Offer a platform for designing, testing, and evaluating both hospital and community-based interventions including diagnotics and other health care technologies.
About MAMA-LINK
We are excited to launch a comprehensive Mother-Child Electronic Medical Record (EMR) database to promote rigorous research in maternal and child health. MAMA-LINK is dedicated to empowering researchers to understand child growth from pre-pregnancy through conception, childbirth, and beyond, while ensuring high participant protection and adherence to ethical standards.
In Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa, research on maternal and child health outcomes has been limited due to a lack of robust data sources and ethical concerns regarding the involvement of minors and pregnant mothers in research. MAMA-LINK seeks to address these challenges by accurately collecting de-identified EMR data from mothers and their children at health facilities in Eastern Uganda.
We will gather ethically verified EMR data, including clinician notes, images, socio-demographic information, and mortality data, providing in-depth insights into patient care. This data will offer a comprehensive view of the patient journey for mothers and their children, facilitating monitoring and comparative effectiveness research to improve patient care. Our goal is to create at least one million mother-child pairs across Uganda, thereby establishing a strong foundation for enhancing maternal and child healthcare outcomes.
Phase 1: A review of medical Records and infrastructure Capacity to inform Prospective Cohort studies in Maternal and Child health in rural Uganda
In partnership with St. Francis Hospital Buluba, we are conducting a hospital‑based review of maternal and child health records in Mayuge District. Ethical approval was obtained from the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST; HS5841ES) and Mildmay Uganda REC (MUREC; MUREC‑2025‑777).
The study entails systematically reviewing hard‑copy facility registers to assess the quality, completeness, and structure of routinely collected maternal and perinatal data. Variables examined include sociodemographic characteristics, pre‑existing conditions, clinical indicators, and pregnancy outcomes, which are evaluated against Ugandan and WHO maternal care standards.
The review will also explore the feasibility of linking records across antenatal, delivery, and postnatal care pathways. Data extraction is occurring at St. Francis Hospital Buluba and Mayuge Health Centre IV, covering the period January 2023 to December 2024.
