Infant mortality hits rural black population hard - Entrepreneur Generations

A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has some grim statistics for African American women and women living in rural areas--especially those who are both. One key finding is that infant mortality is higher in rural areas for all races. But infant mortality for all African American babies is much higher, no matter where they live. As Maggie O'Neill with the Daily Mail summarizes, "Black babies born in rural areas of the US are three times more likely to die at birth than city-born white infants."

Axios graph by Chris Canipe; click to enlarge it.

The CDC's findings on rural infant mortality make sense, "since people in rural counties are farther away from hospitals and doctors," Bob Herman reports for Axios. More and more rural hospitals are either closing down or shuttering their obstetrical services, so more than half of rural counties don't have a place where women can go to give birth.

Besides race, the CDC teases out several other specific categories in which rural infant mortality is higher. The mortality rate for postneonatal babies (aged between one and 12 months) is 49 percent higher in rural areas. And though mortality rates for every age group of mothers are higher in rural mothers, the difference is especially pronounced in women who give birth at age 40 or up. Infant mortality in that age group is 54 percent higher than in the same age group in urban areas.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2wOg5kb Infant mortality hits rural black population hard - Entrepreneur Generations

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