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Data routinely collected by health facilities could become an additional source for measuring maternal mortality, but the quality needs to improve. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Tanzania propose four measures for assessing these data. The work is published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

Maternal mortality refers to deaths during pregnancy, childbirth or the six weeks following pregnancy. Reliable information about these deaths is important for monitoring progress in maternal health. Yet accurate estimates remain difficult in many low- and middle-income countries, where systems for registering deaths are often incomplete or lacking.

Today, more than 80% of births take place in health facilities in about two-thirds of low- and middle-income countries. This means that information routinely collected by hospitals and other health facilities could potentially complement existing sources of maternal mortality data. However, underreporting of maternal deaths is a concern.

"Health facility data could provide additional information for estimates of maternal mortality, but we first need to understand and improve the completeness and quality of the reporting," says Claudia Hanson, professor of global health systems research at the Department of Global Public Health.

The researchers propose four measures to assess data quality. These examine whether reported maternal mortality levels and geographical patterns are plausible, the relationship between reported stillbirths and maternal deaths, the distribution of causes of death, and the age distribution among women who died.

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