spatial analysis of china province-level perinatal mortality

background: using spatial analysis tools to determine the spatial patterns of china province-level perinatal mortality and using spatial econometric model to examine the impacts of health care resources and different socio-economic factors on perinatal mortality. methods: the global moran’s i index is used to examine whether the spatial autocorrelation exists in selected regions and moran’s i scatter plot to examine the spatial clustering among regions. spatial econometric models are used to investigate the spatial relationships between perinatal mortality and contributing factors. results: the overall moran’s i index indicates that perinatal mortality displays positive spatial autocorrelation. moran’s i scatter plot analysis implies that there is a significant clustering of mortality in both high-rate regions and low-rate regions. the spatial econometric models analyses confirm the existence of a direct link between perinatal mortality and health care resources, socio-economic factors. conclusions: since a positive spatial autocorrelation has been detected in china province-level perinatal mortality, the upgrading of regional economic development and medical service level will affect the mortality not only in region itself but also its adjacent regions.