Infant mortality rates in the United States reveal significant disparities among racial and ethnic groups. In 2023, Black mothers faced the highest rate at nearly 11 deaths per 1,000 live births, more than double the rate for white mothers. This stark contrast persists despite overall improvements in healthcare and highlights the need for targeted interventions to address these inequalities. Birth rates and fertility trends While infant mortality rates vary, birth rates also differ across ethnicities. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women had the highest fertility rate in 2022, with about 2,237.5 births per 1,000 women, far exceeding the national average of 1,656.5. In 2023, this group maintained the highest birth rate at 79 births per 1,000 women. Asian women, by contrast, had a much lower birth rate of around 50 per thousand women. These differences in fertility rates can impact overall population growth and demographic shifts within the United States. Hispanic birth trends and fertility decline The Hispanic population in the United States has experienced significant changes in birth trends over recent decades. In 2021, 885,916 babies were born to Hispanic mothers, with a birth rate of 14.1 per 1,000 of the Hispanic population. This represents a slight increase from the previous year. However, the fertility rate among Hispanic women has declined dramatically since 1990, dropping from 108 children per 1,000 women aged 15-44 to 63.4 in 2021. This decline aligns with broader trends of decreasing fertility rates in more industrialized nations.

All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child; starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother. Birth data are used to calculate infant mortality rate. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends/

Non-Hispanic Black women had the highest rate of infant mortality in the U.S. in 2023. In that year, there were almost ** infant deaths per 1,000 live births among Black women. Leading causes of infant mortality in the U.S. include congenital malformations, disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight, maternal complications, and sudden infant death syndrome.

In 2022, the state of Mississippi had the highest infant mortality rate in the United States, with around 9.11 deaths per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality is the death of an infant before the age of one. The countries with the lowest infant mortality rates worldwide are Slovenia, Singapore, and Iceland. The countries with the highest infant mortality rates include Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Central African Republic. Causes of infant mortality Rates and causes of infant mortality are different depending on the country and region. However, the leading causes of neonatal deaths include preterm birth complications, intrapartum-related events, and sepsis. The leading causes of death among children aged 1 to 59 months are pneumonia, diarrhea, and injury. In the United States The infant mortality rate in the United States has decreased over the past few decades, reaching a low of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021. The most common causes of infant death in the United States are congenital malformations, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome. In 2022, congenital malformations accounted for around 108 infant deaths per 100,000 live births.

Infant Mortality Rate by Maternal Race/Ethnicity for New York City, 2007-2016 Counts of infant deaths (age <1 year) are based on NYC death certificates. The rate is calculated using the counts of infant deaths as the numerator and the count of live births from NYC birth certificates as the denominator.

This topic is no longer available in the NCHS Data Query System (DQS). Search, visualize, and download other estimates from over 120 health topics with DQS, available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dataquery/index.htm. Data on on average annual infant mortality rates in the United States and U.S. dependent areas, by race and Hispanic origin of mother, state, and territory. Data are from Health, United States. SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set.

Data on infant, neonatal, postneonatal, fetal, and perinatal mortality rates by selected characteristics of the mother. Please refer to the PDF or Excel version of this table in the HUS 2019 Data Finder (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/contents2019.htm) for critical information about measures, definitions, and changes over time.

SOURCE: NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, public-use Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set, public-use Fetal Death File, and public-use Birth File. For more information on the National Vital Statistics System, see the corresponding Appendix entry at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus19-appendix-508.pdf.

From 2019 to 2021, there were over ** infant deaths per 1,000 live births among non-Hispanic Black women who were obese before pregnancy in the United States. This statistic illustrates the rate of infant mortality in the United States from 2019 to 2021, by maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index and race/ethnicity.

Data on infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality rates in the United States, by detailed race and Hispanic origin of mother. Data are from Health, United States. Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. Search, visualize, and download these and other estimates from over 120 health topics with the NCHS Data Query System (DQS), available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dataquery/index.htm.

The Mortality - Infant Deaths (from Linked Birth / Infant Death Records) online databases on CDC WONDER provide counts and rates for deaths of children under 1 year of age, occuring within the United States to U.S. residents. Information from death certificates has been linked to corresponding birth certificates. Data are available by county of mother's residence, child's age, underlying cause of death, sex, birth weight, birth plurality, birth order, gestational age at birth, period of prenatal care, maternal race and ethnicity, maternal age, maternal education and marital status. Data are available since 1995. The data are produced by the National Center for Health Statistics.

From 2019 to 2021, there were around 19 infant deaths per 1,000 live births among non-Hispanic Black women in the United States who smoked during pregnancy. In comparison, the infant mortality rate among Black women who did not smoke while pregnant was 5.16 per 1,000 live births. This statistic depicts the rate of infant mortality in the United States from 2019 to 2021 among women who smoked or not during pregnancy, by race/ethnicity.

From 2019 to 2021, overall infant mortality rates in the U.S. were highest among infants of women who received late or no prenatal care and lowest among infants of women who received it in the first trimester. This statistic depicts the infant mortality rate in the United States from 2019 to 2021, by initiation of prenatal care and maternal race/ethnicity.

From 2016 to 2020, the rate of sudden infant death syndrome among Hispanics in the United States was **** per 100,000 live births. This statistic shows the rates of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) in the U.S. from 2016 to 2020, by cause and race and ethnicity.

This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "DQS Infant mortality rates, by race and Hispanic origin of mother, state, and territory: United States and U.S. dependent areas" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.

This data collection consists of three data files, which can be used to determine infant mortality rates. The first file provides linked records of live births and deaths of children born in the United States in 1991 (residents and nonresidents). This file is referred to as the "Numerator" file. The second file consists of live births in the United States in 1991 and is referred to as the "Denominator-Plus" file. Variables include year of birth, state and county of birth, characteristics of the infant (age, sex, race, birth weight, gestation), characteristics of the mother (origin, race, age, education, marital status, state of birth), characteristics of the father (origin, race, age, education), pregnancy items (prenatal care, live births), and medical data. Beginning in 1989, a number of items were added to the U.S. Standard Certificate of Birth. These changes and/or additions led to the redesign of the linked file record layout for this series and to other changes in the linked file. In addition, variables from the numerator file have been added to the denominator file to facilitate processing, and this file is now called the "Denominator-Plus" file. The additional variables include age at death, underlying cause of death, autopsy, and place of accident. Other new variables added are infant death identification number, exact age at death, day of birth and death, and month of birth and death. The third file, the "Unlinked" file, consists of infant death records that could not be linked to their corresponding birth records. (Source: downloaded from ICPSR 7/13/10)

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at ICPSR at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06629.v1. We highly recommend using the ICPSR version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.

In 2022, the infant mortality rate in the United States was 5.4 out of every 1,000 live births. This is a significant decrease from 1960, when infant mortality was at around 26 deaths out of every 1,000 live births. What is infant mortality? The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of babies under the age of one per 1,000 live births. There are many causes for infant mortality, which include birth defects, low birth weight, pregnancy complications, and sudden infant death syndrome. In order to decrease the high rates of infant mortality, there needs to be an increase in education and medicine so babies and mothers can receive the proper treatment needed. Maternal mortality is also related to infant mortality. If mothers can attend more prenatal visits and have more access to healthcare facilities, maternal mortality can decrease, and babies have a better chance of surviving in their first year. Worldwide infant mortality rates Infant mortality rates vary worldwide; however, some areas are more affected than others. Afghanistan suffered from the highest infant mortality rate in 2024, and the following 19 countries all came from Africa, with the exception of Pakistan. On the other hand, Slovenia had the lowest infant mortality rate that year. High infant mortality rates can be attributed to lack of sanitation, technological advancements, and proper natal care. In the United States, Massachusetts had the lowest infant mortality rate, while Mississippi had the highest in 2022. Overall, the number of neonatal and post neonatal deaths in the United States has been steadily decreasing since 1995.

BackgroundWhile the high prevalence of preterm births and its impact on infant mortality in the US have been widely acknowledged, recent data suggest that even full-term births in the US face substantially higher mortality risks compared to European countries with low infant mortality rates. In this paper, we use the most recent birth records in the US to more closely analyze the primary causes underlying mortality rates among full-term births.Methods and findingsLinked birth and death records for the period 2010–2012 were used to identify the state- and cause-specific burden of infant mortality among full-term infants (born at 37–42 weeks of gestation). Multivariable logistic models were used to assess the extent to which state-level differences in full-term infant mortality (FTIM) were attributable to observed differences in maternal and birth characteristics. Random effects models were used to assess the relative contribution of state-level variation to FTIM. Hypothetical mortality outcomes were computed under the assumption that all states could achieve the survival rates of the best-performing states. A total of 10,175,481 infants born full-term in the US between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2012, were analyzed. FTIM rate (FTIMR) was 2.2 per 1,000 live births overall, and ranged between 1.29 (Connecticut, 95% CI 1.08, 1.53) and 3.77 (Mississippi, 95% CI 3.39, 4.19) at the state level. Zero states reached the rates reported in the 6 low-mortality European countries analyzed (FTIMR < 1.25), and 13 states had FTIMR > 2.75. Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) accounted for 43% of FTIM; congenital malformations and perinatal conditions accounted for 31% and 11.3% of FTIM, respectively. The largest mortality differentials between states with good and states with poor FTIMR were found for SUDI, with particularly large risk differentials for deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (odds ratio [OR] 2.52, 95% CI 1.86, 3.42) and suffocation (OR 4.40, 95% CI 3.71, 5.21). Even though these mortality differences were partially explained by state-level differences in maternal education, race, and maternal health, substantial state-level variation in infant mortality remained in fully adjusted models (SIDS OR 1.45, suffocation OR 2.92). The extent to which these state differentials are due to differential antenatal care standards as well as differential access to health services could not be determined due to data limitations. Overall, our estimates suggest that infant mortality could be reduced by 4,003 deaths (95% CI 2,284, 5,587) annually if all states were to achieve the mortality levels of the best-performing state in each cause-of-death category. Key limitations of the analysis are that information on termination rates at the state level was not available, and that causes of deaths may have been coded differentially across states.ConclusionsMore than 7,000 full-term infants die in the US each year. The results presented in this paper suggest that a substantial share of these deaths may be preventable. Potential improvements seem particularly large for SUDI, where very low rates have been achieved in a few states while average mortality rates remain high in most other areas. Given the high mortality burden due to SIDS and suffocation, policy efforts to promote compliance with recommended sleeping arrangements could be an effective first step in this direction.

The Detailed Mortality - Underlying Cause of Death data on CDC WONDER are county-level national mortality and population data spanning the years 1999-2009. Data are based on death certificates for U.S. residents. Each death certificate contains a single underlying cause of death, and demographic data. The number of deaths, crude death rates, age-adjusted death rates, standard errors and 95% confidence intervals for death rates can be obtained by place of residence (total U.S., region, state, and county), age group (including infants and single-year-of-age cohorts), race (4 groups), Hispanic ethnicity, sex, year of death, and cause-of-death (4-digit ICD-10 code or group of codes, injury intent and mechanism categories, or drug and alcohol related causes), year, month and week day of death, place of death and whether an autopsy was performed. The data are produced by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Analysis of ‘Death Rate & Life-Expectancy Over The Years’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/yamqwe/death-rate-and-life-expectancye on 13 February 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

About this dataset

This storyboard of U.S. mortality trends over the past 113 years highlights the differences in age-adjusted death rates and life expectancy at birth by race and sex; neonatal mortality and infant mortality rates by race; childhood mortality rates by age; and trends in age-adjusted death rates for five selected major causes of death.

• Age-adjusted death rates (deaths per 100,000) are based on the 2000 U.S. standard population.
• Populations used for computing death rates for 2011–2013 are postcensal estimates based on the 2010 census, estimated as of July 1, 2010.
• Rates for census years are based on populations enumerated in the corresponding censuses.
• Rates for noncensus years before 2010 are revised using updated intercensal population estimates and may differ from rates previously published.

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National Center for Health Statistics Data Visualization of Deaths in the United States, 1900–2013 (6/01/15)

Attribution: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This dataset was created by Health and contains around 2000 samples along with Sex, Race, technical information and other features such as: - Year - Measure Names - and more.

How to use this dataset

• Analyze Mortality in relation to Average Life Expectancy
• Study the influence of Sex on Race
• More datasets

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit Health

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--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "DEV DQS Infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality rates, by detailed race and Hispanic origin of mother: United States" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.