Measuring Maternal Mortality using Civil Registration Data
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Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.1 aims to reduce the global mortality ratio (MMR) to less than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Part of achieving this goal is having accurate estimates for the maternal mortality ratio. However, producing accurate measures of MMR from well-established civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems remains a problem in the Philippines. In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released two different national estimates of the MMR. This calculation difference is primarily due to the existing errors in the CRVS in monitoring MMR data, i.e. underreporting and misclassification of maternal deaths. With the aim of proposing an official method of estimating MMR in the Philippines, this study explores the use of the Bayesian CRVS adjustment model using civil registration data to improve and standardize the estimation of MMR in the country.
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