Improving US maternal mortality reporting by analyzing literal text on death certificates, United States, 2016-2017.

ABSTRACT: Changes in data collection and processing of US maternal mortality data across states over time have led to inconsistencies in maternal death reporting. Our purpose was to identify possible misclassification of maternal deaths and to apply alternative coding methods to improve specificity of maternal causes. We analyzed 2016-2017 US vital statistics mortality data with cause-of-death literals (actual words written on the death certificate) added. We developed an alternative coding strategy to code the "primary cause of death" defined as the most likely cause that led to death. We recoded deaths with or without literal pregnancy mentions to maternal and non-maternal causes, respectively. Originally coded and recoded data were compared for overall maternal deaths and for a subset of deaths o

SUBMITTER: MacDorman MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7592741 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature