Maternal and Child Health

Of course, a geographic breakdown of Twitter users isn’t available in any public data sets or api. Let’s try something more useful like the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone. Google gives me a list of links, some more useful than others, but the answer certainly does not pop to the top. I try Wolfram Alpha and get a result that cannot be right: “483 deaths per year.”

Search result for ‘Maternal Mortality in Sierra Leone’

Okay, maybe I’m an idiot. How about “Maternal Mortality rate in Sierra Leone“? We are getting closer: “0.17 deaths per 100,000 persons per year” according to 2002 statistics says Alphay. Finally I head back to Google and search, “maternal mortality rates by country,” which leads me to maternal mortality country data on ChildInfo.org. 2100 deaths per 100,000 live births and 5,400 total, giving a woman  in Sierra Leone a 1 in 8 chance of dying in child birth. Hey, Google and Wolfram Alpha, that data would be useful in a nice clean chart. Hey, world, those stats SUCK! Let’s do something about it.