Provincial Maternal Mortality Surveillance Systems in China

Table 1

Comparisons among PMMSS, NMCMSS, and NMCHRS.

	PMMSS	NMCMSS	NMCHRS
Establishment	Established by the provincial governments at varied time	Established by Ministry of Health (MOH) in 1989 and redesigned in 1996	Established by MOH in 1980s
Purpose	Monitor provincial maternal mortality level	Monitor national maternal mortality level	Provide national MCH indicators*
Finance	Funded by local provincial finance	Funded by China’s Ministry of Finance	Funded by China’s Ministry of Finance
Methodology	Varied by province (see Table 3)	Population-based stratified cluster random sampling survey	Routine report level by level
Covered population	Cover large population (see Table 3)	Cover about 60 million population (about 5% of China’s population)	Cover entire population of mainland China
Data form	Maternal mortality report cards	Maternal mortality report cards	Routine reporting forms for MCH indicators
Maternal death review	Yes	Yes	No
Main usage of the data	Prepared annual provincial maternal and child health report	Prepared annual national maternal and child health report for the MOH	Prepared annual national MCH indicators*

∗MCH indicators: MMR, infant mortality rate, neonatal mortality rate, rate of birth defects, and so forth.