In April 2025, the Discontinu_Cities project team published a paper in Nature Cities analysing geographic accessibility of childbirth care in Grand Conakry, Guinea.
Key findings of the analysis include:
- Travel to the nearest facility with childbirth care required an average of 8 minutes, increasing to 22 minutes for public hospitals, with notable variation across communes.
- There are major disparities in geographic access to health facilities providing childbirth care, driven by the skewed spatial distribution of health facilities, heavy traffic and socio-economic disadvantage.
- During times of heavy traffic, travel times exceed 2 hours from some areas.
- Peri-urban communes are near medical deserts due to the low number of facilities, particularly public hospitals providing comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care.
- Wealthier populations live closer to facilities providing childbirth care.
