The infant mortality rate is a strong indicator of the accessibility of prenatal healthcare to populations of specific geographic regions. High death rates of infants very often mirror economic disenfranchisement.

Indeed, we see from the data below that areas peopled by Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, or African Americans suffer disproportionately higher infant mortality rates. Inadequate access to health care, fair rents, freedom from lead poisoning, adequate water and nutrition, educational opportunities and a living wage all play roles in infant mortality rates.

INFANT MORTALITY RATES 1997

Massachusetts: 5.3 infant deaths/1000 live births
Holyoke: 7.1 infant deaths/1000 live births (5)
Springfield: 9.9 infant deaths/1000 live births
Boston: 8.4 infant deaths/1000 live births
Lawrence: 14.5 infant deaths/1000 live births
Barnstable: 12.4 infant deaths/1000 live births
Lynn 12.5 infant deaths/1000 live births (2)

Cuba: 8 infant deaths/1000 live births
USA: 8 infant deaths/1000 live births
Japan: 4 infant deaths/1000 live births
Russia: (newly capitalist) 25 infant deaths/1000 live births
Nepal: 79 infant deaths/1000 live births
Angola: 139 infant deaths/1000 live births (3)
 
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued an alarming graph, illustrative of the variegations in infant mortality rates related to “race”. According to this reference, Black, Non-Hispanic people suffer more than two times the infant mortality rates than whites. Infant mortality rates in Massachusetts in 1994, according to racial categories follow:

Massachusetts (statewide average): 6 infant deaths/1,000 live births
Asian: 2.4 infant deaths/1,000 live births
White Non-Hispanic: 5.3 infant deaths/1,000 live births
Hispanic: 7.6 infant deaths/1,000 live births
Black Non-Hispanic: 12.6 infant deaths/1000 live births (4)

These figures exhort a call to action on the part of all of us to wrestle with and overpower the learned racism and cultural elitism that bombards our daily lives. Such disparate death rates amongst the innocent outline in bold relief how far we must come to truly bring the prayer of civil rights into effect.

Because infant mortality rates are caused by so many different factors in society, from the educational biases of teachers, to the racist prescriptions of healthcare workers, to the exploitive practices of employers, to the denigrating neglect of slumlords, to the punitive legislation of policymakers, to the hateful messages of the media, it falls to every one of us to self-scrutinize and painstakingly change anything in ourselves that is racist.

References
1. Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, T., Clayton, F.A. Davis, Co.,1993, Philadelphia
2. http://www.state.ma.us/dph/birth/97/ab97xsum.htm
3. http://www.carnell.com/population/infant-mortality-latin-american-html
4. http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/dph/mihlth02.htm
5. personal communication, March 2000, Heather Warner, Holyoke Dept.of Public Health.