A study out of Michigan State University shows that infant mortality rates among both blacks and whites have decline dramatically over the past two decades.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, a significant racial gap remains, with black babies dying at a much higher rate than white babies according to the study:
For blacks, the rate of deaths within the first year of life dropped from 18.6 per 100,000 live births in 1983 to 12.3 per 100,000 in 2004. The rate of white infant deaths dropped from 9 to 5.3. Overall, the infant mortality rate gap between the races declined by 2.6 deaths per 100,000 live births.
While U.S. health officials have said the narrowing of the gap is encouraging, they still point to the fact that the difference remains large and difficult to shrink significantly.
The study separated the gap into the part that could be predicted by differences in observable factors and the part that remained after taking those factors into account. The researchers found that the part of the gap that could not be predicted remained remarkably constant over the two decades. By 2004, about 74 percent of the black-white infant mortality gap was not accounted for by differences in these observable factors.
In other words, even if policymakers could wave a magic wand and eliminate disparities in education, marital status and all the other factors the researchers accounted for, it would only reduce the gap by one quarter, Haider said.
According to the report, researchers are unable to say at this time what factors are responsible for the persistent racial gap in infant mortality rates.
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