Aim: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the variation in caesarean delivery rates across counties in Georgia and to determine whether county-level characteristics were associated with clusters.
Design: This was a retrospective, observational study.
Methods: Rates of primary and repeat caesarean by maternal county of residence were calculated for 2008 through 2012. Global Moran's I (Spatial Autocorrelation) was used to identify geographic clustering. Characteristics of high and low-rate counties were compared using student's t test and chi-squared test.
Results: Spatial analysis of both primary and repeat caesarean rate identified the presence of clusters (Moran's I = 0.375; p < .001). Counties in high-rate clusters had significantly lower access to midwives, more deliveries paid by Medicaid, higher proportion of births for women belonging to racial/ethnic minority groups and were more likely to be rural.
Keywords: caesarean section; maternal health services; nurses; nursing; spatial analysis.
© 2019 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.