Infant Mortality
Definition
The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of infants under one year of age per 1,000 live births in a given population. In 2002, the United States' infant mortality rate varied widely by race of the mother from 14.3 for infants of black mothers to 5.9 for infants of Hispanic mothers to 5.8 for infants of white mothers. As can be noted, the mortality rate for black infants is more than twice that of white infants. The overall infant mortality rate in 2002 for all races was 7.0 per 1,000 live births, which was a slight increase over the previous year.
Description
Infant mortality rate is one of the key indicators of a nation's health status. When the rate increases, as it did from 2001 to 2002, the factors that precipitated this change need to be assessed and scrutinized....
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