A stabilized maternal mortality rate estimator for biased skeletal samples

Clare McFadden; Britta Van Tiel; Marc F. Oxenham

doi:10.1537/ase.2005051

A stabilized maternal mortality rate estimator for biased skeletal samples

Clare McFadden^*, Britta Van Tiel, Marc F. Oxenham

^*Corresponding author for this work

Archaeology

Australian National University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper seeks to provide a stabilised (i.e. less vulnerable to differences in sex
representation) equation for estimating maternal mortality for biased skeletal samples. The stabilised equation is developed and tested on the United Nations (2017) data used to develop the original method (McFadden and Oxenham, 2019), and is applied to 16 bioarchaeological samples from mainland Southeast Asia. First order correlations and basic descriptive statistics were applied to the data. The stabilised equation was comparable in accuracy to the original equation. When applied to bioarchaeological samples, it proved to be advantageous where the sex ratio differed by more than 0.15 in either direction (i.e. more females or more males). The stabilised equation is an improvement over the original equation for samples that exhibit sex-bias that is randomly distributed by age. This method extends the potential applications of the maternal mortality estimator.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	113-117
Number of pages	5
Journal	Anthropological Science
Volume	128
Issue number	3
Early online date	4 Aug 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1537/ase.2005051
Publication status	Published - 4 Aug 2020

Keywords

sample bias
fertility
maternal mortality
childbirth
pregnancy

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1537/ase.2005051Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

@article{b0ba90a35038416b9d5a0333e917cc01,

title = "A stabilized maternal mortality rate estimator for biased skeletal samples",

abstract = "This paper seeks to provide a stabilised (i.e. less vulnerable to differences in sexrepresentation) equation for estimating maternal mortality for biased skeletal samples. The stabilised equation is developed and tested on the United Nations (2017) data used to develop the original method (McFadden and Oxenham, 2019), and is applied to 16 bioarchaeological samples from mainland Southeast Asia. First order correlations and basic descriptive statistics were applied to the data. The stabilised equation was comparable in accuracy to the original equation. When applied to bioarchaeological samples, it proved to be advantageous where the sex ratio differed by more than 0.15 in either direction (i.e. more females or more males). The stabilised equation is an improvement over the original equation for samples that exhibit sex-bias that is randomly distributed by age. This method extends the potential applications of the maternal mortality estimator.",

keywords = "sample bias, fertility, maternal mortality, childbirth, pregnancy",

author = "Clare McFadden and {Van Tiel}, Britta and Oxenham, {Marc F.}",

year = "2020",

month = aug,

day = "4",

doi = "10.1537/ase.2005051",

language = "English",

volume = "128",

pages = "113--117",

journal = "Anthropological Science",

issn = "0918-7960",

publisher = "Anthropological Society of Nippon",

number = "3",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - A stabilized maternal mortality rate estimator for biased skeletal samples

AU - McFadden, Clare

AU - Van Tiel, Britta

AU - Oxenham, Marc F.

PY - 2020/8/4

Y1 - 2020/8/4

N2 - This paper seeks to provide a stabilised (i.e. less vulnerable to differences in sexrepresentation) equation for estimating maternal mortality for biased skeletal samples. The stabilised equation is developed and tested on the United Nations (2017) data used to develop the original method (McFadden and Oxenham, 2019), and is applied to 16 bioarchaeological samples from mainland Southeast Asia. First order correlations and basic descriptive statistics were applied to the data. The stabilised equation was comparable in accuracy to the original equation. When applied to bioarchaeological samples, it proved to be advantageous where the sex ratio differed by more than 0.15 in either direction (i.e. more females or more males). The stabilised equation is an improvement over the original equation for samples that exhibit sex-bias that is randomly distributed by age. This method extends the potential applications of the maternal mortality estimator.

AB - This paper seeks to provide a stabilised (i.e. less vulnerable to differences in sexrepresentation) equation for estimating maternal mortality for biased skeletal samples. The stabilised equation is developed and tested on the United Nations (2017) data used to develop the original method (McFadden and Oxenham, 2019), and is applied to 16 bioarchaeological samples from mainland Southeast Asia. First order correlations and basic descriptive statistics were applied to the data. The stabilised equation was comparable in accuracy to the original equation. When applied to bioarchaeological samples, it proved to be advantageous where the sex ratio differed by more than 0.15 in either direction (i.e. more females or more males). The stabilised equation is an improvement over the original equation for samples that exhibit sex-bias that is randomly distributed by age. This method extends the potential applications of the maternal mortality estimator.

KW - sample bias

KW - fertility

KW - maternal mortality

KW - childbirth

KW - pregnancy

U2 - 10.1537/ase.2005051

DO - 10.1537/ase.2005051

M3 - Article

SN - 0918-7960

VL - 128

SP - 113

EP - 117

JO - Anthropological Science

JF - Anthropological Science

IS - 3

ER -

A stabilized maternal mortality rate estimator for biased skeletal samples

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this