Enhanced pregnancy-associated mortality surveillance: Minnesota, 1990-1999

Comprehensive surveillance is critical to accurate identification of pregnancy-associated deaths and risk factors and is the first step in implementing programs to prevent such deaths in young women. In Minnesota, surveillance is currently based on analysis of data from death records. This study sought to demonstrate that the state's current surveillance method underestimates the actual burden of maternal deaths in Minnesota. It proposes that ongoing enhanced surveillance--analysis of death certificate data combined with the linking of death records of women of reproductive age with live birth records or fetal death records--provides a more complete and accurate accounting of pregnancy-associated mortality in Minnesota.