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Brittany Snively

11/20/17

Dr. Carey

Research Paper

Why does Infant Mortality Rate differ between races?

Infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths per 1,000 live births of children under

one year of age (Identifying). Non-Hispanic white women have an infant mortality rate of 5.66.

On the contrary, non-Hispanic black women have the highest infant mortality rate in the Unites

States, with a much larger number of 13.60 (Washington Post). Non-hispanic black women’s

IMR is practially double the size (and plus some) of the non-Hispanic white womans Infant

Mortality Rate.

I understand what the defition of Infant Mortality Rate is and I understand the heavy

process that happens to give us rates in numerical form, within each regional area. But one thing

I do not understand is why there is a huge difference among the two similiar but different races.

So why does that happen and what are the factors that make infant mortality rates vary among

the different races?

Throughout the numerous informative articles I have personally researched in the last few

weeks, it was brought to my attention that there is not ONE simple distinctive answer to this

question. Instead I found out it could have multiple possible answers. Through careful research, I

found that various researchers have linked up numerous reasons together that could possibly

have an impact on one another, and have a strong association to the variety of different Infant

Mortality Rates amongst the races.

To my understanding, Infant Mortality Rate fluctuates among races because of the

socioeconomic and multiple social factors that could possibly affect the mothers of the infant(s)

in different ways. One example of a socioeconomic factor that will be carefully discussed in this

research paper is education. Examples of the few social factors that will also be discussed in this

paper will be healthcare, substance abuse/usage and prenatal care. Hopefully after discussing

these examples in more detail, they will show a correspondence with one another and show how

they impact race and their Infant Mortality Rate. Let us only hope.

I personally feel Education has the biggest impact on Infant Mortality Rates. I say this

because of “74% of Mexican American immigrant mothers do not possess education, compared