United Nations Statistics Division - Demographic and Social Statistics

For people living with HIV/AIDS : Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic 2002 (www.unaids.org, accessed on Dec. 2002); for prenatal care and deliveries by skilled attendant: Wistat, Version 4,CD-ROM, based on WHO, "Coverage of maternity care: a listing of available information", fourth edition (WHO/RHT/MSM/96.28) (Geneva, 1996); for maternal mortality ratio: estimates from "Maternal Mortality in 2000: Estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA".

Footnotes:

Note: Two dots (..) indicate that data are not available or are not reported separately

^aMaternal mortality estimated from vital registration, characterized as complete(over 90% of adult deaths are reported) with good attribution of cause of death.^bMaternal mortality derived by using a statistical model because of poor attribution of cause of death or non-existence of national data on maternal mortality.^cMaternal mortality derived from direct sisterhood estimates.^dFrom Reproductive Age Mortality Survey (RAMOS) or RAMOS-type surveys.
^eHousehold survey estimates.
^fMaternal mortality derived from population census of 1996.
^gAdults and children.^hPercentage of women attended at least once during pregnancy by skilled health personnel for reasons related to pregnancy.ⁱFor statistical purposes, data for China do not include Hong Kong SAR and Macao SAR.
^j1995 estimates.

Technical notes:

Table 3.B presents the estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS and the percentage of women among them, the percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care, the percentage of deliveries attended by a skilled attendant and maternal mortality ratio.

The estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS and the percentage of women among adults living with HIV/AIDS are obtained from a report prepared by UNAIDS and WHO in 2002. The data provided are summarized from the individual country 2001 epidemiological fact sheets, which are the collaborative efforts of UNAIDS, WHO and national AIDS programmes or other national authorities.

The estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS includes all adults aged 15-49 and children under 15 infected with HIV, whether or not they have developed symptoms of AIDS, alive at the end of 2001. Percentage of women among those living with HIV/AIDS is calculated only for adults aged 15-49.

Table 3.B includes two basic indicators of maternity care during pregnancy and delivery: percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care and percentage of deliveries attended by a skilled attendant. The latter has been widely found to be a sensitive indicator in developing countries of access to maternal health services, which are essential to the survival and health of mothers and infants. Both indicators are estimated by WHO from a variety of national sources.

Pregnant women receiving prenatal care refers to women attended at least once during pregnancy by skilled health personnel for reasons related to pregnancy. Number of live births, as a proxy for the total number of pregnancies, is used as the denominator in calculating the percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care. The percentage of deliveries attended by a skilled attendant is based on deliveries attended by skilled health personnel, irrespective of outcome (live birth or foetal death). Skilled attendant at delivery includes doctors (specialist or non-specialist) and/or persons with midwifery skills who can diagnose and manage obstetrical complications as well as normal deliveries. It excludes the category trained traditional birth attendant, even if the attendant has undergone extensive training and is subsequently integrated in the formal health-care system. The number of live births, as a proxy for the total number of pregnancies, is used as the denominator in calculating the percentage of deliveries attended by a skilled attendant.

Reliable national data on coverage of maternity care are not always available. Systematic national data-collection systems are often inadequate or absent. Estimates therefore rely on multiple sources, such as community-based studies, demographic and health surveys and other reports. The accuracy and precision of estimates depend upon the quality of the data on which they are based. Given the absence of standardized reporting systems, estimates given in this table should be interpreted with caution and viewed as indicating approximate orders of magnitude of coverage rather than precise figures. The estimates pertain to a period of time, rather than to a specific point in time. Furthermore, these estimates of maternity care do not take into account variation in the quality or impact of care.

Maternal mortality ratio is defined as the number of maternal deaths divided by the number of live births for a given year and is expressed per 100,000 live births. Maternal deaths are defined as those caused by deliveries and complications of pregnancy, child-birth and the puerperium. However, the exact definition varies from case to case and is not always clear in the original source, particularly regarding the inclusion of abortion-related deaths.

Furthermore, the World Health Organization observes that most maternal deaths go unregistered in areas where maternal mortality rates are highest. To address this information gap, WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund recently developed new estimates of maternal mortality using a dual strategy. This involved using available data wherever possible, adjusted to account for the common problems of under-reporting and misclassification of maternal deaths, and developing a simple model to predict values for countries with no reliable national data. The estimates derived from this approach are considered to be more reliable than earlier ones and are the ones shown here.

Statistics and indicators on women and men

Sources:

Footnotes:

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