Mortality and the economic crisis in Greece.

Financial crisis can be a threat to health, and International Monetary Fund programmes have been associated with impeded efforts to control child and maternal mortality. In 2008, Greece entered the most serious socioeconomic downturn in the country’s modern history, which has steadily worsened over the following years. Vlachadis and Kornarou reported that an increase in stillbirths in Greece was linked to the economic crisis; stillbirth rate increased from 3·31 per 1000 livebirths in 2008 to 4·36 in 2010, but the study included only the fi rst 2 years of the crisis. Data for maternal health have not been analysed since 2006. In light of the socioeconomic crisis taking place in Greece, our aim was to investigate whether this crisis had an eff ect on stillbirths, and infant, child, and maternal mortality. We investigated the potential association between the financial crisis (2008–12) and stillbirths, and infant, child, and maternal mortality, using the precrisis period (2003–07) as the referent. Stillbirth, infant and child mortality (per 1000 livebirths), and maternal mortality (number of maternal deaths per 100 000 livebirths) are shown in the table. Infant mortality rate and child mortality rate did not diff er between the precrisis and crisis periods (3·83 [95% CI 3·56–4·10] vs 3·17 [2·63–3·72], and 4·56 [4·18–4·93] Mortality and the economic crisis in Greece