Race/Ethnic Differences in Infant Mortality for Leading Causes of Death That Had No Reduction in Rates

Parker Frisbie, University of Texas at Austin
Seung-Eun Song, University of Texas at Austin

The research objective is to determine whether a substantial expansion of the race/ethnic gap that occurred for the three specific causes of infant death for which major reductions were achieved also occurred in the other two leading causes for which no (or very small) declines were observed in the 1990s. There were no notable advances in perinatal technology specific to the two causes on which we focus, short gestation and unspecified low birth weight and maternal complications, while the opposite was true for the other three leading causes. An important question is how minorities fared, as compared to non-Hispanic whites, in regard to the two causes of infant death showing no improvement. Using linked birth/infant death for 1989-91 and 1995-98, we show that for non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican Americans, the mortality gap widened in both relative and absolute terms, while Mexican immigrants recorded a higher degree of relative survivorship.