Joanna Ortega, MPH Candidate
Pregnant women sitting with a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) at a health facility
Joanna worked with Venture Strategies Innovations (VSI) and Ghana Health Service (GSH) to conduct monitoring and evaluation of a Misoprostol pilot project in Ghana. The project aimed to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity due to postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) by providing women with Misoprostol—a life-saving drug that has been shown to effectively prevent PPH. The project also sought to generate evidence to inform policy on the use of misoprostol for prevention of PPH distributed through ANC.
Pregnant woman receiving misoprostol at an antenatal care visit
During her time in Ghana, she visited project sites to ensure accurate data collection; conducted informal interviews with providers, traditional birth attendants, and women who had taken misoprostol; and monitored data entry and district-level project management. She also assisted with the development of monitoring tools, designed data entry templates, and trained local health workers on data entry and analysis.