Black Infant Deaths Will Triple White by 2000 at Current Rate, Officials Say
Black babies will be three times more likely to die than white babies by the year 2000 if the gap in the U.S. infant mortality rate continues to widen, federal health officials warned Friday.
Blacks’ risk of dying before their first birthday was twice that of whites in 1960, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The disparity is even greater now.
From 1980 to 1991, the most recent year for which data are available, the rate of black infant deaths dropped 20.7%, from 22.2 to 17.6 per 1,000 births.
But the rate for whites fell 33%, from 10.9 to 7.3 per 1,000, the CDC said in its weekly report.
The report did not include figures on other ethnic groups.
At least two-thirds of the gap was due to an increase in the number of very low birth weights among black newborns, the CDC said.
Overall, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 8.9 per 1,000 births in 1991, down 29.4% from 12.6 in 1980, the CDC said.
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