{"id":117935,"date":"2018-01-08T10:12:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T15:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=117935"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:33:05","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:33:05","slug":"better-data-collection-needed-to-reduce-maternal-mortality","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2018\/better-data-collection-needed-to-reduce-maternal-mortality\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Data Collection Needed to Reduce Maternal Mortality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"banner-container banner-has-html\">\n<div class=\"videoWrapper\" style=\"position: relative;padding-bottom: 56.25%; \/* 16:9 *\/height: 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"855\" height=\"481\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/buniverse\/interface\/embed\/embed.html?v=7LbAu0\" style=\"position: absolute;top: 0;left: 0;width: 100%;height: 100%;frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen> <\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar sphnews-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">January 8, 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>The rising maternal mortality rates in Texas indicate a need to improve maternal health-related data collection, according to a new study co-authored by\u00a0a\u00a0School of Public Health researcher.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published in <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/birt.12330\/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Birth,<\/em><\/a> found a sharp increase in maternal mortality rates in Texas. The researchers attributed some of the rate increase to overreporting and a flawed data collection system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth the increasing maternal mortality rates in Texas and the substantial data problems identified in our study constitute an urgent call for action,\u201d said lead author Marian MacDorman, research professor at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popcenter.umd.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maryland Population Research Center<\/a>. \u201cWhile the dramatic increase in maternal deaths in Texas is most concerning, this is a problem that needs to be addressed nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maternal mortality has long been considered a primary indicator of the quality of health care both in the United States and internationally. In 1990, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">United Nations<\/a> named maternal mortality reduction as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/millenniumgoals\/bkgd.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Millennium Development Goal<\/a>, leading to an unprecedented effort to reduce maternal mortality worldwide. Globally, maternal mortality decreased by 44 percent from 1990 to 2015, including a 48 percent decline among developed regions. However, the United States maternal mortality rate has shown consistent increases. Prior research by MacDorman and colleagues showed that the US maternal death rate increased 27 percent overall between 2000 and 2014, while rates declined internationally.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers used the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/nvss\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Vital Statistics System<\/a> to obtain maternal mortality statistics for subnational and national comparisons and grouped the mortality rate into five-year averages from 2006 to 2010 and 2011 to 2015. They found an 87 percent increase in maternal deaths in Texas when comparing data from 2011 to 2015 with 2006 to 2010.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/birt.12333\/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commentary<\/a> accompanying the <em>Birth<\/em> article, the authors argued for a \u201csystemic evaluation\u201d of current reporting methods for maternal deaths, as well as the implementation of validation studies, data quality checks, and enhanced education and training at state and national levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaternal mortality is the tip of the iceberg regarding the poor performance of the United States in women\u2019s health. It is critical that we first establish better data systems to document the problem and then develop systems that focus on women\u2019s health, not just when they\u2019re pregnant, but throughout the life-course.\u201d said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/profile\/eugene-declercq\/\">Eugene Declercq<\/a>, co-author and professor of community health sciences,\u00a0summarizing their research.<\/p>\n<p>The study was co-authored by Marie Thoma, assistant professor at <a href=\"http:\/\/sph.umd.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">University of Maryland School of Public Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014<a href=\"mailto:abdallas@bu.edu\">Salma Abdalla<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rising mortality rates may partly own to overreporting and flawed data collection system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13554,"featured_media":117948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2385,2332,2601],"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\/117935"}],"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\/13554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117935"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/117935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175256,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/117935\/revisions\/175256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=117935"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=117935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}