According to UNICEF, the global maternal mortality rate declined 38 percent from 2000 to 2017 from 342 deaths to 211 deaths per 100,000 live births. Moreover, the maternal mortality rate was 8.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2018 in Canada.
Statistics Canada reports slightly different numbers for 2018 with a total of 32 deaths or 8.59 out of 100,00 live births during pregnancy or within 1 year of end of pregnancy.
It may be a less well-known, but certainly devastating fact that Black women in the United States are 2-6 times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy than white women, depending on where they live.
Canadian Health Systems Researcher, Alison Mclean thinks this may be the case for Canada as well and she believes that Indigenous women may also have a higher incidence of maternal mortality due to pregnancy related complications as compared to white Canadian women. There is little to no race-based data for maternal mortality and infant mortality rates in Canada. In her presentation, she will discuss the difficulties one faces when trying to gather this data as well as the various barriers present in accessing this valuable information.
Dr. Ana Langer, Director of the Women and Health Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston says, "It's basically a public health and human rights emergency because it's been estimated that a significant portion of these deaths could be prevented."
Please join us for a critical discussion on issues surrounding maternal mortality and how we can combat these statistics and why collecting race-based health data is so important to bettering the health outcomes of BIPOC women.
This event is made possible thanks to funding from the Canadian Red Cross and the Government of Canada.
November 23, 7 PM PST / Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88460299556
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We acknowledge that this event is hosted from the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people, currently and specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.