Unravelling the conundrums of social autopsy for maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries.

Banke-Thomas, Aduragbemi; Ogunyemi, Adedoyin; Okunowo, Adeyemi; Wright, Ololade; Monjane, Celso; Akinlusi, Fatimat M; Isikekpei, Brenda; Wanduru, Phillip; Thompson, Rachel A; Ezumezu, Ndubuisi; +1 more... Afolabi, Bosede B; (2025) Unravelling the conundrums of social autopsy for maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries. PLOS global public health, 5 (3). e0004295-. ISSN 2767-3375 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004295

Abstract

Any meaningful effort to tackle maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) needs to be founded on a robust understanding of its causes. In LMICs, verbal autopsies are used to determine the clinical causes of death through interviews with the deceased person’s next-of-kin or caregivers. In addition, social autopsies have been conducted to allow capture of the story behind the death, enabling a comprehensive understanding of the socio-cultural, behavioural, and health system factors that contributed to the death [1,2]. However, researchers implementing social autopsies in LMICs are faced with some conun�drums. In this opinion, we discuss three key conundrums and propose a way forward for the field

Additional Information

Item Type	Article
Faculty and Department	Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & International Health (2023-)
Research Centre	Centre for Maternal, Reproductive and Child Health (MARCH)
PubMed ID	40048450
Elements ID	237369
Official URL	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004295