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\u27s I (Spatial Autocorrelation) was used to identify geographic clustering. Characteristics of high and low-rate counties were compared using student\u27s t test and chi squared test.
Results: Spatial analysis of both primary and repeat caesarean rate identified the presence of clusters (Moran\u27s I = 0.375; p \u3c .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
