Background
Pregnancy is a critical period within the first 1,000 days of life to implement interventions to optimize maternal and child health. There is a significant gap in evidence-based public health tools for monitoring gestational weight gain (GWG) that can be applied to women of all pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) levels and geographic locations. Current GWG guidelines and recommendations are based primarily on findings from observational studies in high-income countries (HIC) and do not cover the entire range of pre-pregnancy BMI. To address this critical gap, the World Health Organization (WHO) will initiate a normative process to achieve two key objectives: 1) Develop global GWG standards that can be used as a tool for dynamic monitoring in antenatal care in diverse settings; 2) Define optimal GWG ranges based on these curves, to reduce the risk of adverse maternal and infant outcomes.
Purpose
In order to achieve objective 1 of this project, WHO aims to gather data on gestational weight gain from various sources (i.e., published and unpublished studies and routine/administrative systems) from different contexts and geographical regions to develop global guidance and tools for GWG monitoring.
How to apply
The data to be shared for this project must meet study-level eligibility criteria to be included in the pooled database. As a first step, the principal investigator (PI) interested in sharing the data must complete an online form to facilitate the verification of whether the study meets the eligibility criteria at the study-level.
After the PI’s completion of the online form, WHO will review the submitted material and contact the PI responsible for informing about the eligibility status of the data. For those eligible studies, WHO will invite PIs/Institutions to share any data sharing agreement they might have with WHO. In the absence of such agreement, WHO can provide a standard data-sharing agreement as a starting point towards a version both parties will agree to. After both parties sign the agreement, the study PI can proceed with sharing the data.
The acquired data will be stored in a secure repository created by WHO specifically for this project. The management and updates of the repository will be the sole and exclusive responsibility of WHO and PIs collaborating with it will have access only to their own raw data. The shared data will be used only to achieve the objectives of this project.
For easy reference, we kindly ask you to review the following documentation:
- Concept note of the global call for data;
- Data Sharing Standards (DSS), including a data sharing process
It is important for PIs to be familiarized with the information included in the documents listed above, in case their data are eligible for this project. Please note that for those cases where the PI’s institution does not have a data sharing agreement, WHO will facilitate this process by sharing key principles for data sharing which can then be used as a template for a data sharing agreement.
Submission form
If you have any question, please contact us at globalgwg@who.int with the following email subject "Questions – Global data call for the Gestational Weight Gain Standards".