Every year, 295,000 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth globally. Nigeria accounts for an enormous 23% of these deaths. Each one is a needless tragedy, and preventing them should be a global priority.

How can we do so? Research has shown that prompt access to nine critical maternity services, together known as emergency obstetric care, can reduce deaths of pregnant women by 15-50% and the deaths of their unborn children by 45-75%.

Pregnant women have a higher risk of dying if they experience any of three delays in accessing this care when they need it. These include a delay in deciding to seek care, a delay travelling to appropriate health facilities, or a delay in receiving the care they need when they get there.

In Nigeria, it’s the delay in travelling to receive care that is often the most deadly, with many women left to travel to health facilities either on their own or with support of their relatives, without professional help. This journey is thought of as a “black box” because unravelling what happened during their travel, including delays experienced while en route, can only be analysed after it is already too late.

What if we could use Google Maps, the most popular navigation app on earth, to help understand these delays? In a recently published study, my colleagues and I assessed travel time to care for pregnant women in emergency situations using data from Google Maps.

We used the travel time estimates we found to assess the coverage of critical maternity services in Nigeria’s most urbanised state and the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa – Lagos.

Our findings indicate that these hotspots require government intervention to reduce delays in women accessing care. The Lagos state government already appears to be addressing one of these hotspots by building the Eti-Osa Maternal and Child Care Centre.

Read the full article about Google Maps by Aduragbemi Banke-Thomas at Global Citizen.