{"id":102464,"date":"2017-04-11T11:02:32","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T15:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=102464"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:25:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:25:43","slug":"maternal-mortality-rising-in-us-with-wide-disparities","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2017\/maternal-mortality-rising-in-us-with-wide-disparities\/","title":{"rendered":"Maternal Mortality Rising in US, with Wide Disparities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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April 11, 2017<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"newborn-holding-finger\"Despite a worldwide decline in maternal mortality from 1990 to 2015, the incidence has risen in the US in recent years, with death rates of non-Hispanic black mothers almost three times those for whites and Hispanics, according to a new study co-authored by a School of Public Health researcher.<\/p>\n

The study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology<\/em><\/a>, calls for efforts to improve reporting of maternal mortality data to identify trends and at-risk populations, and to guard against over-reporting. It also reaffirms findings of widespread racial and ethnic disparities in mortality, with deaths of black women 2.8 times more likely than whites and 3.6 times more likely than Hispanics, in 27 states and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

Researchers examining deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy\u2014based on a new US standard pregnancy question on death certificates\u2014found that the maternal mortality rate increased by 23 percent from 2009 to 2014 in the 27 states and DC. The only significant increases in rates were for women ages 40 and older, which were 18 times higher than for women ages 25\u201329, the lowest risk group.<\/p>\n

About one-third of the reported maternal deaths in 2013\u20132014 were of women 40 and older, compared with just 3 percent of live births, suggesting what the authors said was \u201ca possible over-reporting of maternal deaths of older women\u201d that should be further examined.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge increases in maternal mortality rates for older women and among nonspecific causes suggest possible data-quality problems that may be worsening over time,\u201d the study says. Using the recently added standard pregnancy \u201ccheckbox\u201d question to report on maternal deaths can be problematic because it may inadvertently be checked \u201ceven if the woman is not pregnant or postpartum,\u201d or the death is unrelated to pregnancy.<\/p>\n

Study co-author Gene Declercq<\/a>, professor of community health sciences, said the study is further confirmation that maternal mortality in the US \u201ccontinues to rise, at a time when it is dropping internationally.\u201d He noted that while the US \u201ccontinues to have maternal mortality rates for non-Hispanic blacks that are several times that of whites, the rate for whites alone is still higher than virtually all other industrialized countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worldwide, maternal mortality declined 44 percent from 1990 to 2015. Among the US states studied, death rates declined slightly for women younger than 25 and increased slightly for women ages 25\u201329, although the changes were not statistically significant.<\/p>\n

The authors modeled the potential effect of over-reporting of pregnant or postpartum status with use of the pregnancy checkbox, finding that a 1\u00a0percent false-positive rate would increase mortality rates by 26 percent for women younger than 40, and more than 230 percent for women ages 40\u201354.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuality improvement efforts need to focus on improving the quality and validity of the new pregnancy checkbox data,\u201d the authors said. \u201cPeriodic validation studies and the implementation of data quality checks at both the state and national levels are essential to improving reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was led by Marian MacDorman of the Maryland Population Research Center, University of Maryland. Marie Thoma of the University of Maryland was a co-author.<\/p>\n

\u2014Lisa Chedekel<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deaths of black women 2.8 times more likely than whites, and 3.6 times more likely than Hispanics, in 27 states and District of Columbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8472,"featured_media":102466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[1710,506,2332],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3525,3531,3540],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[423],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/102464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102464"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/102464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173890,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/102464\/revisions\/173890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=102464"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=102464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}