Helping to influence health policy in Peru Dr Magaly Blas is a medical epidemiologist and Mamás del Río programme director at Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University, Peru. Her team works to improve maternal and newborn health in remote Indigenous Amazonian communities. During the covid-19 pandemic, rural health services were severely disrupted. Mamás del Río adapted quickly using mobile technology and empowering community health workers to maintain care.
Their experience, published in BMJ Innovations , highlights how locally driven, social innovations can deliver real impact, even in crisis. The Peruvian Health Minister used the evidence from the paper to inform a policy change that formalised the Mamás del Río programme across the region, integrating it into the national health system. Since contributing to BMJ Innovations’ special collection on social innovation in health, the programme has expanded from 13 to 84 communities along 350km of the Amazon River. A three year evaluation by Mamás del Río found significant improvements in newborn care, including thermal care, cord care, breastfeeding and hospital deliveries. Blas believes that publishing an evaluation of her work in a reputable, rigorously peer reviewed BMJ Group journal like BMJ Innovations lends crucial credibility.
“We found in BMJ Group a voice to report on what was happening to us during the pandemic to the international world. Having our research published in an important journal like BMJ Innovations shows evidence that our intervention is backed up by research. It also outlines the effect of what we are doing to improve the health of people in rural, remote and indigenous areas.” Dr Magaly Blas , medical epidemiologist, professor and researcher at Cayetano Heredia, Peruvian University in Lima, Peru
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