Referring to a Maternal Health Task Force infographic depicting maternal mortality worldwide, Jen Quraishi, editorial coordinator for Mother Jones, writes in a post on Mother Jones’ “Blue Marble” blog that “there are lots of ways to juggle [maternal mortality] numbers, and ultimately I find the death rate per capita more useful than the total number of deaths … Charts like these obscure the point that the relative wealth and size of a country do have an effect on its maternal mortality, but they’re not everything.”  She goes on to state, “At the end of the day, I find it disheartening that a rich country like the U.S., which prides itself on its treatment of women, has the same maternal mortality rate as a country that doesn’t let women drive (Saudi Arabia) and a worse rate than countries with a fraction of its GDP per capita” (8/15).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

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