Infant and Maternal Mortality Among Negroes

The mortality of Negro infants and mothers has long been recognized as extremely high, but the actual situation has been somewhat obscure because statistics for Negroes customarily are combined with those for other non-white races such as Indian, Chinese, Japanese. This study presents statistics for the Negro as such. Information with respect to the Negro, as distinct from other races, is greatly needed in connection with planning and developing community programs directed toward reducing the mortality among Negro infants and mothers. The information is especially pertinent at the present time on account of the new maternal and child-health programs being developed under the Social Security Act. This chapter presents the available statistics with respect to infant and maternal mortality among Negroes; it reviews the present situation in detail and indicates the general trend of mortality throughout the period of record. In connection with this analysis the underlying factors that affect the reliability of the statistics are discussed. The material presented for Negroes includes statistics for the expanding birth-registration area, 1915-35, for the geographic sections used for statistics of Negroes by the United States Bureau of the Census, and for the 29 states with 500 or more Negro live births annually.' The geographic sections are the Southern states (17 states, including the District of Columbia, which is considered as a state throughout this article), the Northern states (21), and the Western states (11). Of the 29 individual states for which detailed material is presented 17 are Southern, 11 Northern, and 1 Western. Statistics for white infants and mothers are presented for the purpose of contrasting the mortality experience of the Negro and the white races. The more favorable situation of the white race is not suggested as an optimum expectation for the Negro, but rather as an early objective to be reached through improvement in environmental conditions and through health education. There is general appreciation of the need for improvement in maternal and child-health conditions among all races in the United States. Even in the states with the lowest infant and maternal mortality rates (states in which the population is largely white) active effort is being directed toward the reduction of mortality among mothers and infants through the provision of adequate prenatal, natal, and postnatal care, and through the education of mothers in improved methods of infant care and feeding

Infant mortality · Population · Sociology · Demography · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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