Abstract
Understanding the fine scale spatial distribution of births and pregnancies is crucial for informing planning decisions related to public health. This is especially important in lower income countries where infectious disease is a major concern for pregnant women and new-borns, as highlighted by the recent Zika virus epidemic. Despite this, the spatial detail of basic data on the numbers and distribution of births and pregnancies is often of a coarse resolution and difficult to obtain, with no co-ordination between countries and organisations to create one consistent set of subnational estimates. To begin to address this issue, under the framework of the WorldPop program, an open access archive of high resolution gridded birth and pregnancy distribution datasets for all African, Latin America and Caribbean countries has been created. Datasets were produced using the most recent and finest level census and official population estimate data available and are at a resolution of 30 arc seconds (approximately 1 km at the equator). All products are available through WorldPop.
Highlights
Background & SummaryAccurate and detailed information on the spatial distribution and numbers of births and pregnancies is crucial for informing planning decisions related to public health[1]
To understand and tackle inequalities related to maternal and neonatal health, the first step is to have a detailed knowledge of the distribution of births and pregnancies, which is known to vary substantially due to population age and sex distribution and age specific fertility rates (ASFR)[4]
In the framework of the WorldPop project, and extending the approaches described by Tatem et al.[4], an open access archive of gridded birth and pregnancy distribution datasets for all African, Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries has been created
Summary
Accurate and detailed information on the spatial distribution and numbers of births and pregnancies is crucial for informing planning decisions related to public health[1]. When considering maternal and neonatal health in lower income countries, infectious disease is a major concern as pregnant women and new-borns are at risk from many diseases, such as malaria[11] and HIV12 This issue has recently been highlighted by the Zika virus outbreak in Latin America, further intensifying the need for detailed information on the number and distribution of births and pregnancies. In the framework of the WorldPop project (www.worldpop.org), and extending the approaches described by Tatem et al.[4], an open access archive of gridded birth and pregnancy distribution datasets for all African, Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries has been created This process used the most recent and finest level census, census microdata, household survey data and official population estimate data available to the authors at the time of writing, alongside a range of geospatial datasets
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