How a tick box doubled the US maternal mortality rates.
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
he US has been portrayed as in the grip of a maternal mortality crisis. In contrast to most other developed nations, the rate of maternal deaths in the US has been going up since the early 2000s.
But why? With the help of Saloni Dattani, a researcher at Our World in Data, Tim Harford explores how a gradual change in the way the data was gathered lies at the heart of the problem.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Debbie Richford Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Series Producer: Tom Colls Sound Mix: Emma Harth Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:29.4 | Newscast, listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | We are weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in life. |
| 0:40.0 | I'm Tim Harford. The maternal mortality rate counts an awful thing. |
| 0:50.0 | The women who die during pregnancy or birth for reasons related to that pregnancy. |
| 0:56.0 | It measures one of the most traumatic things that happens in any society, |
| 1:00.0 | so it's definitely good news that for most of the world the rate of maternal deaths has been in long term decline. |
| 1:08.0 | This makes it particularly strange that in the US one of the richest nations on earth the rate of maternal |
| 1:15.2 | deaths appears to have been going up and fast. |
| 1:19.2 | Since around the |
| 1:25.0 | rate rates have doubled from around 2003 to 2017. |
| 1:28.0 | Overall, the rates have doubled from around 2003 to 2017. |
| 1:35.0 | With rates like that, it's not surprising the US has been portrayed as in the grip of a maternity crisis. |
| 1:42.0 | But when you look a little closer, you quickly find a huge problem with the data describing |
| 1:47.2 | this alarming trend. So what is going on. |
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