Volume 48 - Article 4 | Pages 89–106  

The Human Multiple Births Database (HMBD): An international database on twin and other multiple births

By Catalina Torres, Arianna Caporali, Gilles Pison

Abstract

Background: The frequency of twin births has increased dramatically since the 1970s in nearly all developed countries. This upsurge poses a public health challenge because multiple pregnancies are associated with higher health risks and other disadvantages for both the children and the parents. A better understanding of the variation and trends in twinning and other multiple rates is therefore urgently needed.

Objective: The Human Multiple Births Database (HMBD) provides open access national statistics on multiple births for numerous countries.

Methods: HMBD data come from the vital statistics system of each country included. We use annual counts of births by plurality to estimate the twinning and multiple birth rate for each year. All procedures performed on the input data are documented.

Results: The HMBD provides the annual number of deliveries by multiplicity, the twinning rate, and the multiple rate. As of January 2023, 25 countries are included. For each country, data go back as far into the past as possible and extend until the most recent year with available data. Definitions and other specificities of each country’s data (e.g., the treatment of stillbirths in the statistics) are provided in the metadata.

Contribution: The HMBD is a unique resource, providing and documenting the most complete possible annual series of data on multiple births for each country included. All materials (data, metadata, computer codes, interactive data explorers, and supplementary material) are freely available at https://www.twinbirths.org/. At the time of writing this paper the HMBD is a work in progress, as updates and other enhancements are introduced progressively: the series for each country included is updated with data for the most recent years, and further developments in the metadata and other materials are underway.

Author's Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in Uruguay from 2020 to 2022
Volume 51 - Article 29

Estimating mortality from census data: A record-linkage study of the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Burkina Faso
Volume 46 - Article 22

Estimating mortality from external causes using data from retrospective surveys: A validation study in Niakhar (Senegal)
Volume 38 - Article 32

The Contextual Database of the Generations and Gender Programme: Concept, content, and research examples
Volume 35 - Article 9

Adult mortality in a rural area of Senegal: Non-communicable diseases have a large impact in Mlomp
Volume 19 - Article 37

Population observatories as sources of information on mortality in developing countries
Volume 13 - Article 13

Similar articles in Demographic Research

Open science practices in demographic research: An appraisal
Volume 50 - Article 43    | Keywords: demography, open access data, population studies, replicability, reproducibility

Editorial to the Special Issue on Demographic Data Visualization: Getting the point across – Reaching the potential of demographic data visualization
Volume 44 - Article 36    | Keywords: data visualization, demographic data, demography

The quality of demographic data on older Africans
Volume 34 - Article 5    | Keywords: age, census, data quality, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), demographic data, Ethiopia, Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), Niger, older people, sub-Saharan Africa

Perinatal mortality in the Netherlands. Backgrounds of a worsening international ranking
Volume 11 - Article 13    | Keywords: ethnicity, foetal mortality, infant and child mortality, mortality, multiple births, neonatal mortality, perinatal mortality, Peristat, risk factors