Home - GFMER Country Coordinators
Rita Kabra
GFMER Coordinator for India
Dr. Rita Kabra
Reproductive/Maternal Health and Health System
GFMER Director - special focus Asia, Middle East
Email: rita.kabra@gfmer.org
Dr. Rita Kabra has over 20 years of experience in the field of sexual and reproductive health, maternal health, HIV and public health. She began her career as a clinician/researcher with Human Research Reproduction Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi and has worked In India for over 10 years in various capacities in area of sexual and reproductive health. She has extensive international experience having worked with WHO- Geneva for the last 12 years with the Departments of Reproductive health and Research, Making Pregnancy Safer and Health Systems. Dr. Kabra has managed and implemented a range of projects and programmes to improve reproductive health services and health systems, including assessing health workforce need and migration. She has wide experience in planning, conducting and supervising research to improve maternal health and strengthen health system. She has developed technical/policy/practice guidelines in sexual and reproductive health, maternal and newborn, integrating HIV/PMTCT, malaria, anaemia, etc and has regularly worked on the introduction, field testing, adaptation and implementation of the evidence based guidelines in many countries (Afghanistan, Cairo, Zambia, Uganda, India, and Morocco). She has wide experience in developing training manuals for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes and in teaching and training undergraduates, medical doctors, nurses and midwives. Lately, she managed the Implementation Research Platform with the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research.
Memberships
Medical council of India. She is a long-term member of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI), The Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), National Association for Voluntary Sterilization and Family Welfare of India, London External Alumni Association. She has been associated in various capacities with several national and international research and academic organizations.
Publications
Dr. Kabra has several publications to her credit. She has chaired several scientific and other committees at national and international level. Rita holds a medical degree from the University of Rajasthan, India, a diploma in health systems management and a master’s in Public health from London University.
Current areas of interest
Health services management, primary health care, quality of care, maternal mortality reduction, integration of health services, financing for maternal health, operations research, linking research to policies and practices, retention and migration of health care workers.
Country situation of sexual and reproductive health
India with a population of more than 1 billion faces many challenges in the sexual and reproductive health of its citizens. Because maternal mortality is intrinsically hard to measure, estimates vary widely: The Indian government estimates that 301 maternal deaths occur per 100,000 live births, whereas the World Health Organization puts the estimate at 450. Nonetheless, available data suggest that maternal mortality is gradually decreasing. Indian women are staying in school longer than they once did, delaying marriage and increasing their use of effective contraceptives, and they increasingly want smaller families. The total fertility rate dropped from 3.4 births per woman in 1993 to 2.7 in 2006. This decline—which means lower lifetime exposure to the risks inherent in pregnancy and childbearing—appears to be an important factor in the decrease in maternal mortality. http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2009/07/29/index.html
The leading causes of maternal death in India are hemorrhage, sepsis, complications of abortions and hypertensive disorders. The major causes of neonatal death are Infections, prematurity and birth asphyxia. More than half of women in India—55 percent—have anaemia, including 39 percent with mild anaemia and 2 percent with severe anaemia. http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/SR128/SR128.pdf
The key efforts to improve maternal health are encouraging institutional delivery, supporting emergency obstetric acre and training auxiliary nurse midwives and nurses to become skilled birth attendants. The main national programmes to improve SRH are:
- Reproductive and child health programmes. http://mohfw.nic.in/NRHM/RCH/Index.htm
- National rural health Mission. http://mohfw.nic.in/NRHM.htm
- Janani suraksha yojna, a part of NRHM. http://jknrhm.com/PDF/JSR.pdf
- The National Urban Health Mission seeks to address the health care needs of the rapidly growing urban population. http://www.uhrc.in/module-ContentExpress-display-ceid-95.html
The Lancet series- India towards Universal health Coverage2 presents in detail the challenges India is facing in improving the health and nutrition of its citizen and makes a case for transformation of health services through effective stewardship, decentralized planning in districts, a reasoned approach to financing that affects demand for health care, a campaign to create awareness and change health and nutrition behavior, and revision of programmes for child nutrition on the basis of evidence. This agenda needs political commitment of the highest order and the development of a people’s movement. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60638-7/fulltext
The census 2009 report: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/vital_statistics/SRS_Bulletins/Final-MMR%20Bulletin-2007-09_070711.pdf
Information on key indicators and trends for India and States/Union Territories is available at: http://www.rchiips.org/pdf/rch3/state/India.pdf, http://www.mohfw.nic.in/
Candidates from India who took the SRH/GFMER course in past
- Amar Taksande Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram, Wardha, India
- Amit Bansal Bansal Clinic, Jagraon, India
- Badrinarayan Mishra Department of Community Medicine, Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, PMT, Loni, India
- Beena Joshi Department of Operations Research, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai, India
- Chinmay Shah Department of Physiology, Government Medical College, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India
- Jayanna Krishnamurthy Bangalore, India
- Jayesh Sheth Gene polymorphisms and folate metabolism as maternal risk factors for Down syndrome child
- Jyoisna Gokral Impact of Chlamydia Trachomatis infection on male infertility
- Nandita Maitra Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medical College, Surat
- Nidhi Gupta Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India
- Pradip Kumar Saha Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh, India
- Puneet Gupta Department of Public Health Dentistry, Government College of Dentistry, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
- Ravinder Kumar State Health and Family Welfare Training Centre, Parimahal Shimla, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Himachal Pradesh, India
- Rita Kabra Reproductive/Maternal Health and Health System - GFMER Director - special focus Asia, Middle East
- Sajal Gupta Maternal anthropometry and pregnancy outcomes: a review
- Sita Shankar Wunnava PATH (India Office), New Delhi, India
Online presentations
- Evidence based practice in obstetrics and gynaecology - Rita Kabra
- Introduction of the WHO Guidelines in national programmes - Rita Kabra
- Making Pregnancy Safer - Rita Kabra
- Making pregnancy safer. Evidence-based practice guidelines for maternal and newborn health care - Rita Kabra
- Making pregnancy safer. Strategic directions - Rita Kabra
- Malaria in Pregnancy - Rita Kabra