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The purpose of this paper is to provide a situational overview of the facility-based maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality audits (MPMMAs) in SSA, their current efficacy at reducing mortality and morbidity rates related to childbirth.

This is a scoping literature review based on the synthesis of secondary literature.

Not all countries in SSA conduct MPMMAs. Countries where MPMMAs are conducted have not instituted standard practice, MPMMAs are not done on a national scale, and there is no clear best practice for MPMMAs. In addition, auditing process of pediatrics and maternal deaths is flawed by human and organizational barriers. Thus, the aggregated data collected from MPMMAs are not adequate enough to identify and correct systemic flaws in SSA childbirth-related health care.

There are a few published literature on the topic in sub-Saharan Africa.

This review exposes serious gaps in literature and practice. It provides a platform upon which practitioners and policy makers must begin to discuss ways of embedding mortality audits in SSA in their health systems as well as health strategies.

The findings of this paper can inform policy in sub-Saharan Africa that could lead toward better outcomes in health and well-being.

The paper is original.

“Honour”-based violence (HBV), a form of gender-based violence (GBV), has received increasing interest from media, human rights organisations, academics and the public. A significant increase in the occurrence and reporting of HBV in many parts of the world and its detrimental impact on the health and well-being of women, girls, communities and wider society; marks it as a major public health concern. However, awareness and recognition of HBV in the field of public health is low in many countries and there is little known about its nature, roots and distribution. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The literature was searched using the Scopus database and a series of search terms related to HBV, GBV and health and well-being.

Definition of HBV and its forms is varied across cultures. There is a lack of consensus on how HBV can be identified over other forms of violence and no explicit theoretical perspectives have been sufficiently developed to deepen the understanding of HBV. Although the findings from the review suggest that HBV forms and patterns may be regionally distinct, causes emanate from gender-based and socio-economic inequalities.

This review has limitations in that it included only English and Spanish language papers and those accessed through Scopus; it therefore may have excluded papers from other languages, countries and databases. Another major weakness in this review was a lack of papers specifically dedicated to HBV. Despite these weaknesses the paper is an attempt to raise awareness and recognition of HBV in public health research, policy and practice domain.

The findings from the review highlight the complexity of tackling HBV in a globalised world. They also provide insights on how a public health model can be used to analyse both the causes and prevention of HBV. Further, a non-culturalised, unprejudiced and inclusive definition is required to flag-up and record HBV cases.