Dilys Walker is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. She serves as the Director of Global Health Research for the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health and the Director of the Institute for Global Health Science (IGHS) Center for Global Maternal Newborn Child Health Research. As a clinician researcher, her academic career has focused on global implementation research in limited resource settings, taking a life course approach to improving outcomes for women, mothers, and their newborns.
Dr Walker led efforts to build the evidence base to support the re-introduction of professional midwifery in Mexico and to address the disparity in quality of care at the time of birth. She developed an innovative provider training program for emergency obstetric and newborn care (PRONTO), based on highly realistic simulation and team training. The program began in Mexico, and now has programs in over 10 countries globally.
As Principal Investigator for the Preterm Birth Initiative East Africa (2014-2021), the project aimed to decrease the burden of preterm birth in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Among other efforts, the team conducted two large CRCTs:(1) to evaluate an intervention package to improve quality of care at birth for preterm infants in Kenya and Uganda, and (2) to assess the impact of group antenatal care on prevention of preterm birth in Rwanda. UCSF, led by Dr Walker, is a technical anchor for the USAID funded Health Evaluation and Applied Research Development Project and has worked with collaborators in Madagascar and Malawi to improve postpartum hemorrhage care.
Dr Walker is co-leading the Equitable Global Health Partnerships Initiative, a collaborative effort between The Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health (Bixby) and the Institute for Global Health Sciences (IGHS) that began in 2021 with the mandate to identify and address inequity in our global health partnerships. This culminated in This culminated in 5 working groups co-led by our global partners developing action plans for the Domains for Change identified through the process including: Education Training and Mentorship, Relationship Building, Authorship and Knowledge Production, Ethics and Community Involvement, and Equity in Financial Management.