Monitoring progress in reducing maternal mortality using verbal autopsy methods in vital registration systems: what can we conclude about specific causes of maternal death?

Ian D Riley, Riley H Hazard, Rohina Joshi, Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury, Alan D Lopez

Open access · goldAbstract readLetter

In one paragraph

Article in BMC medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

2citing papers in PubMed

1.8field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

Global Trends in Maternal Mortality and Efforts to Improve Maternal Outcomes Through Sociomedical Interventions.Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2026
Review
The influence of social and cultural practices on maternal mortality: a qualitative study from South Punjab, Pakistan.Reproductive health · 2021
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Ian D RileySchool of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.

Riley H HazardSchool of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.

Rohina JoshiThe George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Hafizur Rahman ChowdhurySchool of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.

Alan D LopezSchool of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia. alan.lopez@unimelb.edu.au.

University of Melbourne · AUThe George Institute for Global Health · AU

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Reducing maternal mortality is a key focus of development strategies and one of the indicators used to measure progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In the absence of medical certification of the cause of deaths that occur in the community, verbal autopsy (VA) methods are the only available means to assess levels and trends of maternal deaths that occur outside health facilities. The 2016 World Health Organization VA Instrument facilitates the identification of eight specific causes of maternal death, yet maternal deaths are often unsupervised, leading to sparse and generally poor symptom reporting to inform a reliable diagnosis using VAs. There is little research evidence to support the reliable identification of specific causes of maternal death in the context of routine VAs. We recommend that routine VAs are only used to capture the event of a maternal death and that more detailed follow-up interviews are used to identify the specific causes.

Indexed as

Interviews as TopicVital StatisticsAdolescentAdultAutopsyCause of DeathFemaleHumansMaternal DeathMaternal MortalityMiddle AgedPopulation SurveillancePregnancyPregnancy OutcomeSustainable DevelopmentVerbal BehaviorCivil registration and vital statisticsMaternalSustainable development goalsVerbal autopsy

Identifiers

PMID31155009

DOI10.1186/s12916-019-1343-4

PMCPMC6545734

OpenAlexW2947677042

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.