For this project I wanted to source readily available data. First I thought of different country and cities census data, but couldn’t really hone in on the data that I wanted to extract to visualize. After something thinking, I thought about race differences in regards to the maternal mortality rate.
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, mortality and natality data files available on this site I decided to visualize the maternal mortality rate by race for the year 2022. The information for 2023 is still tentative, and 2024’s information is still in progress.
I used SankeyMATIC to build the visualization- once again trying to find a more plug and play tool, rather than learning how to use a tool from scratch. This site provides a template and the user can change things around based on their needs. It is very simplistic and manual.
I had originally intended to put more years of data in, but found that to be an overwhelming task to do manually in this short time frame, so went with 2022. I was then struck at the limited breakdown by race. This made me wonder who may have been misrepresented, or not represented at all. I also found that the term “Non-Hispanic” was not consistent in word order within the data. Specifically, Asian, Non-Hispanic was one listing, while Non-Hispanic Black was another. I decided to make the language consistent. Also, the data was presented as Asian, Black, White, and Hispanic. After inputting the data, I found the visualization a bit jumbled and decided to put them in order of least to most.
I was disappointed to not figure out how or if it is possible to put a title on the visualization, so tried to be clear about what these numbers were (Maternal Deaths per 100,000 Live Births 2022).
It also became evident that this data could easily be misconstrued. It would appear that the highest maternal death rate is for White Non-Hispanics. However, over the years the understanding is the burden and tragedy of maternal deaths falls heavily on the Black community. Was 2022 an outlier? Being picky and choosy with this information could cause true harm, from a misinterpretation of a national tragedy, to a lack of accountability and advocacy to correct it.
Not to mention that it doesn’t illustrate how the United States is an outlier at having such high rates of maternal deaths compared to other “industrialized” nations. In other words THIS IS NOT NORMAL overall.
Probably way more reliable version from Statista.
You will find more infographics at Statista
