CHDS faculty Zachary Ward and Sue J. Goldie and colleagues compared country-specific maternal mortality estimates from three models in a recent eClinical Medicine article: those from the United Nations (UN) Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-agency Group, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project, and the Global Maternal Health (GMatH) model.
The UN and GBD studies use aggregate regression models to estimate global, regional, and country-specific estimates of cross-sectional associations between country-level factors and levels of maternal mortality. The GMatH model is a microsimulation model using a system of causal components and their relationships to estimate maternal health indicators.
The authors found that, on average, the GMatH mean country-level estimates of maternal deaths and of maternal mortality ratios were slightly higher than UN estimates and substantially higher than GBD estimates. They compared model estimates for country-level maternal mortality indicators for the three models to identify areas of convergence and divergence, and discussed possible reasons for the latter. Identifying where and why models diverge helps to identify gaps in empirical data and differences in model assumptions. These comparisons also identify implications for future data collection and inform policies and resource allocation to reduce maternal deaths.
Learn more: Read the full article, Assessing Differences in Country-level Estimates of Maternal Mortality: A Comparison of GMatH, UN and GBD Model Results for 2020
Learn more: Explore the website for the Global Maternal Health (GMatH) model
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