Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Counting dead babies
Because I'm feeling informative this evening, I'm going to take a little time to talk about a little statistic known as the infant mortality rate.
The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of infants, out of a thousand births, who die before their first birthday. In order to qualify, the child must be alive when he/she is born. The rest is up to the data-collector. There are some countries that consider a child with a heartbeat but no respiratory function alive. This leave some room for error, but enough to endanger its use. It is one of the biggest indicators of socioeconomic well-being in the world.
Historically, infant mortality rates have been quite high. In previous centuries, you'd expect more than half of your babies to kick the bucket. As innovations in medical technology appeared, the number began to drop in the West. By the 20th century, the most advanced nations had this number below the 100s (meaning less than 1 in 10 babies were now kicking the bucket).
Today, OECD member countries (i.e. the big guns) are still fighting over the position of lowest IMR. As of 2003, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Finland, and Spain were tied for 1st place, with an infant mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 live births. The US is several places behind, with 7, putting us in the same bracket as Croatia and Cuba. Out of the top 25 most developed countries in the world, we've got the highest IMR (for reasons I'll talk about later).
So why is the IMR such an important statistic? Well, for one, it allows us to determine how much of a demographic transition a country as undergone. A country usually starts out in a pre-industrial state of high mortality and high fertility. Its citizens have a lot of kids, but most of them die before they can add enough to the population to move it out of its slow growth. This is why, for most of human history, our population's increase has been relatively stable.
One of the first thing a developing country faces is a lower level of child mortality, soon followed by an overall increase in life expectancy. This is because either income has grown enough to allow for medical advances within the country (less likely) or that technology has been imported from more advanced countries (more likely). This is known as a countries mortality transition. It is typically followed by a population explosion, because people are living a lot longer, but still having as many babies as before. This state of relatively low mortality but high fertility has led to the huge population explosion we've seen in in this world over the past 100 years, and it's often due to huge reductions in infant mortality rates.
The IMR also tells us how well a society is taking care of its children. The infant mortality rate is closely tied to the Under 5 mortality rate (the same as the IMR, except we wait to see if they can make it to their 5th year). Societies with low child mortality are more likely to invest in the children they have, for there is a greater chance the kid will live to be a productive adult. If so many of your babies die before their 1st birthday, a poverty-stricken mother, as horrible as it sounds, may not give each one the attention it needs anyway, especially if there are other children to attend to. The infant mortality rate in many countries is much higher for girls than it is for boys, as resources are often shifted to the one most likely to be a successful bread-winner for the family.
So how did we get our infant mortality down to such a low number? Well, medical tech and pre/post-natal care do a great deal, but a lot is owed to the status of the mother. The number one killed of babies in the third world is low-birth weight. Children just aren't provided well enough for while they are in the womb, and so come out with less mass on them than usual. This means they will have a weaker immune system and be more susceptible to disease at an early age. Once you've taken care of the mother before birth, and the baby after birth, you've accounted for at least 80% of the average third world's countries IMR.
The rest is due to taking care of the naturally disadvantaged. Plan old genetics causes a lot of kids to be born with problems that only a great deal of technology can help with. This is why you see the infant mortality rate drop sharply as countries get richer, until they hit a rate in the 20s, after which it takes a great deal more money to save one baby in a thousand. I've heard talk that Japan has pushed theirs down to 3 children in a thousand, but I doubt it will go much lower than that. It's been accepted that 3 or 4 is the human races 'natural' infant mortality rate, one that is just due to problems beyond our control.
Wait a minute, didn't I just tell everyone the US's IMR was 7? Why is ours so much higher than the other OECD countries? Well, for one, we're still quite well off. The third world still loses around 100 babies per 1000 live births, and we only lose 7. However, we could still do a lot better. The answer isn't in some technological problem, but a racial-economic one.
Let's use South Carolina as our case study. In 2002, South Carolina had an infant mortality rate of 9.3. Sound's pretty high doesn't it? Well, the infant mortality rate for children with white mothers was, in fact, only 5.9. Children with non-white mothers faced an infant mortality rate of 15.4! That's about the same as a Bosnia or Bulgaria. It is the poor black and Latino populations of this country that face the worst figures in the country, and are the reason why the US can't brag about having low infant mortality rates and high life expectancy, because we have a whole racial/economic class of poverty that we have yet to deal with. I often find it hard to accept the anti-abortion argument from a cohort who typically doesn't care too much about the real numbers on irrefutably dead babies. This statistic tells us so much about a society and where it's going.
In Oconee county, we faced a good year, as our IMR was only 5.3. For those of you from Aiken, you faced one of 8.9. Any of you in Pickens dealt with 8.8. Back here in Horry county, we dealt with a very high 10.7. Charleston 13. Marion faced 17.2.
That's about as much as I feel like going into it tonight. This is just one of the many statistics that I hope to be dealing with on a frequent basis in my career. I've written a econometrical paper on economic inequality and its effect on the infant mortality rate, so I'm fairly familiar with its usage.
The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of infants, out of a thousand births, who die before their first birthday. In order to qualify, the child must be alive when he/she is born. The rest is up to the data-collector. There are some countries that consider a child with a heartbeat but no respiratory function alive. This leave some room for error, but enough to endanger its use. It is one of the biggest indicators of socioeconomic well-being in the world.
Historically, infant mortality rates have been quite high. In previous centuries, you'd expect more than half of your babies to kick the bucket. As innovations in medical technology appeared, the number began to drop in the West. By the 20th century, the most advanced nations had this number below the 100s (meaning less than 1 in 10 babies were now kicking the bucket).
Today, OECD member countries (i.e. the big guns) are still fighting over the position of lowest IMR. As of 2003, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Finland, and Spain were tied for 1st place, with an infant mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 live births. The US is several places behind, with 7, putting us in the same bracket as Croatia and Cuba. Out of the top 25 most developed countries in the world, we've got the highest IMR (for reasons I'll talk about later).
So why is the IMR such an important statistic? Well, for one, it allows us to determine how much of a demographic transition a country as undergone. A country usually starts out in a pre-industrial state of high mortality and high fertility. Its citizens have a lot of kids, but most of them die before they can add enough to the population to move it out of its slow growth. This is why, for most of human history, our population's increase has been relatively stable.
One of the first thing a developing country faces is a lower level of child mortality, soon followed by an overall increase in life expectancy. This is because either income has grown enough to allow for medical advances within the country (less likely) or that technology has been imported from more advanced countries (more likely). This is known as a countries mortality transition. It is typically followed by a population explosion, because people are living a lot longer, but still having as many babies as before. This state of relatively low mortality but high fertility has led to the huge population explosion we've seen in in this world over the past 100 years, and it's often due to huge reductions in infant mortality rates.
The IMR also tells us how well a society is taking care of its children. The infant mortality rate is closely tied to the Under 5 mortality rate (the same as the IMR, except we wait to see if they can make it to their 5th year). Societies with low child mortality are more likely to invest in the children they have, for there is a greater chance the kid will live to be a productive adult. If so many of your babies die before their 1st birthday, a poverty-stricken mother, as horrible as it sounds, may not give each one the attention it needs anyway, especially if there are other children to attend to. The infant mortality rate in many countries is much higher for girls than it is for boys, as resources are often shifted to the one most likely to be a successful bread-winner for the family.
So how did we get our infant mortality down to such a low number? Well, medical tech and pre/post-natal care do a great deal, but a lot is owed to the status of the mother. The number one killed of babies in the third world is low-birth weight. Children just aren't provided well enough for while they are in the womb, and so come out with less mass on them than usual. This means they will have a weaker immune system and be more susceptible to disease at an early age. Once you've taken care of the mother before birth, and the baby after birth, you've accounted for at least 80% of the average third world's countries IMR.
The rest is due to taking care of the naturally disadvantaged. Plan old genetics causes a lot of kids to be born with problems that only a great deal of technology can help with. This is why you see the infant mortality rate drop sharply as countries get richer, until they hit a rate in the 20s, after which it takes a great deal more money to save one baby in a thousand. I've heard talk that Japan has pushed theirs down to 3 children in a thousand, but I doubt it will go much lower than that. It's been accepted that 3 or 4 is the human races 'natural' infant mortality rate, one that is just due to problems beyond our control.
Wait a minute, didn't I just tell everyone the US's IMR was 7? Why is ours so much higher than the other OECD countries? Well, for one, we're still quite well off. The third world still loses around 100 babies per 1000 live births, and we only lose 7. However, we could still do a lot better. The answer isn't in some technological problem, but a racial-economic one.
Let's use South Carolina as our case study. In 2002, South Carolina had an infant mortality rate of 9.3. Sound's pretty high doesn't it? Well, the infant mortality rate for children with white mothers was, in fact, only 5.9. Children with non-white mothers faced an infant mortality rate of 15.4! That's about the same as a Bosnia or Bulgaria. It is the poor black and Latino populations of this country that face the worst figures in the country, and are the reason why the US can't brag about having low infant mortality rates and high life expectancy, because we have a whole racial/economic class of poverty that we have yet to deal with. I often find it hard to accept the anti-abortion argument from a cohort who typically doesn't care too much about the real numbers on irrefutably dead babies. This statistic tells us so much about a society and where it's going.
In Oconee county, we faced a good year, as our IMR was only 5.3. For those of you from Aiken, you faced one of 8.9. Any of you in Pickens dealt with 8.8. Back here in Horry county, we dealt with a very high 10.7. Charleston 13. Marion faced 17.2.
That's about as much as I feel like going into it tonight. This is just one of the many statistics that I hope to be dealing with on a frequent basis in my career. I've written a econometrical paper on economic inequality and its effect on the infant mortality rate, so I'm fairly familiar with its usage.
