Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Nov 7:3:19.
doi: 10.1186/s40748-017-0059-8. eCollection 2017.

Correlates of maternal mortality in developing countries: an ecological study in 82 countries

Tadele Girum  1 , Abebaw Wasie  1
Affiliations

Correlates of maternal mortality in developing countries: an ecological study in 82 countries

Tadele Girum et al. Matern Health Neonatol Perinatol. .

Abstract

Background: Maternal mortality is a major public health issue in developing countries due to its shocking magnitude and lower declining pattern. With appropriate strategy and intensive implementation programs, some countries have made remarkable progress, however in developing countries where 99% of maternal death is occurring; little or no progress has been made. Identifying determinants and designing intervention will have important role to overcome the problem. Therefore this study aimed to identify correlates of maternal mortality in developing countries.

Methods: This study was conducted using international data bases of health metrics from 2008 to 2016 using aggregates of health indicator data from WHO, World Bank, UNDP and UNICEF data bases for 82 developing countries. The dependent variable was the maternal mortality ratio, while the independent variable was socio-economic, health care related and morbidity variables. Data was compiled in excel and analyzed using SPSS version 21.

Results: Maternal mortality ratio is very high in developing countries and enormously varies among countries. A significant relationship between the maternal mortality ratio and socio-economic, health care and morbidity indicator variables was observed. There was an inverse and significant correlation of the maternal mortality ratio with Antenatal care coverage, skilled birth attendance, access to an improved water source and sanitation, adult literacy rate, the Gross National Income per capita and positive relation with disease incidence, unmet need and others.

Conclusions: Maternal mortality is correlated with multiples of socio-economic factors, health care system associated factors, disease burden and their complex interactions. Therefore Policy and programs targeted to improve maternal health and reduce maternal deaths should consider population dynamics, socio-economic influence and health system factors that impose a major risk on mothers.

Keywords: Correlates; Developing countries; Maternal mortality ratio.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ information

TG: is Bsc, MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Lecturer at Department of Public health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Wolkite University, Wolkite, Ethiopia.

AW: is Bsc, MPH in Reproductive health, Lecturer at Department of Public health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Wolkite University, Wolkite, Ethiopia.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

References

    1. Hogan MFK, Naghavi M, Ahn S, Wang M, Makela S, et al. Maternal mortality for 181 countries. Lancet. 1990;375(9726):1609–1623. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60518-1. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Maternal Mortality. 2014. Fact Sheet available at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/. Accessed 1 Dec 2016.
    1. World Health Organization. Trends in Maternal Mortality, 1990 to 2008 Estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2010.
    1. Abyeji AP, IJGO Trends in maternal mortality in Ilon. Int J Gynecol Obstet. 1998;63:183–184. doi: 10.1016/S0020-7292(98)00123-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Suellen Miller JMB. The true cost of maternal death: individual tragedy impacts family, community and nations. BMC Reproduct Health. 2015;12:56. doi: 10.1186/s12978-015-0046-3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources