Cesarean Delivery (HRSA)
This indicator reports the estimated percentage of live births by cesarean delivery between 2020 and 2022. Data are acquired from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Infant Health Mapping Tool.
Note: Data are suppressed for counties with fewer than 10 live births or 10 events in the county and its adjacent neighbors in the time period.
Source
Source Description
The Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) is a database information about the maternal and infant health indicators and overlay demographic characteristics (like population density and number of births) and health resources (such as health centers and National Health Service Corps sites offering women’s health services), with information available down to the county level. Estimates are derived from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Birth Files for 2017-2019 and 2020-2022 as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. County-level identifiers were obtained through an approved project and data use agreement. Accessed via Maternal and Infant Health Mapping Tool.
Data Note: All Health and Infant Health Equity Indicators included in the Maternal and Infant Health Mapping Tool use spatially smoothed data to enable the presentation of estimates for nearly all counties, many of which would otherwise be unreliable or suppressed to ensure confidentiality. To find out more about an indicator in this mapping tool, including whether it uses smoothed data, click on the metadata icon next to the indicator’s name.
Methodology
This indicator reports the percentage of live births by cesarean delivery between 2020 and 2022. Data are acquired from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Infant Health Mapping Tool.
A local empirical Bayes algorithm was used to provide more stable estimates, particularly for counties with small numbers that would otherwise be unreliable or suppressed to ensure confidentiality. The degree of smoothing is inversely proportional to the number of events. Thus, counties with larger numbers of births will have less smoothing and little to no difference between actual or raw data available on CDC WONDER and smoothed estimates, while counties with smaller numbers of births will borrow strength from neighboring counties to improve the stability of estimates. Estimates are suppressed if there were fewer than 10 events in the county and its adjacent neighbors.
For report purpose, both denominator and numerator are also displayed along with the percentage value. The denominator is the average number of live births from 2020 to 2022, based on the Demographic Characteristics tab. The numerator is the number of live births by cesarean delivery during this period, calculated using the denominator and the percentage when available. For multi-county areas, states, and the U.S., the percentage is also calculated using the numerator and denominator.
For additional information, please reference the Maternal and Infant Health Mapping Tool homepage.
This indicator is available at the following subscription levels:
- Premium (currently viewing this indicator and report combination)