Infant Mortality Rates

Infants are particularly vulnerable to death in the first year of life. The infant mortality rate, which is a measure of infant deaths in a group younger than 1 year of age, is an important social barometer to the overall health of a community. Preserving the lives of newborns has been a long-standing issue in public health, social policy, and humanitarian endeavors. High infant mortality rates point to unmet human health needs in sanitation, medical care, nutrition, and education.

The infant mortality rate is an age-specific ratio, used by epidemiologists, demographers, physicians, and social scientists to better understand the extent and causes of infant deaths. To compute last year's infant mortality rate in a given area, one would need to know how many babies were born alive in the area during the period, and how many babies born alive died before their first birthday during that time. Then the number of infant deaths is divided by the number of infant births and then the results are multiplied by 1,000 so that the rate reflects the number of infant deaths per 1,000 births in a standardized manner. Alternately, the rate could be multiplied by 10,000 or 1,000,000 depending on the desired comparison level. For example:

Infant Mortality Rate = Number of infant deaths less than age one during 2008 × 1000 /Number of live births during 2008

There are a number of causes for infant mortality, including poor sanitation and water quality, malnour-ishment of mother and infant, inadequate prenatal and medical care, and the use of infant formulas as a breast milk substitute. Women's status and disparities of wealth are also reflected in infant mortality rates. Where women have few rights and where there is a large income difference between the poor and the wealthy, infant mortality rates tend to be high. Contributing to the problem are limited education and access to birth control, which lead to high numbers of births per women with short intervals in between. High frequency births allow less recovery time for women as well as potential food shortages in poor families. When women are educated, they are more likely to give birth at later ages and to seek better health care and greater education for their children, including their daughters. This entry discusses factors that affect infant mortality rates.