Why The Black Infant Mortality Rate Remains Extremely High In The United States

I completely agree with your claims regarding the presence of racial disparity within the spectrum of health and how maternal health during pregnancy can lead to significant adverse effects on the health of the fetus. I found this to be highly interesting as I was unaware about how much disparity is prevalent within different races across the board. For example, an African American man in Harlem is less likely than a man in in Bangladesh to survive to age 65 or how low-birth-weights are high amongst African American mothers in comparison to white mothers (Kuzawa and Sweet 2-7). Furthermore, other information discussed within the article regarding how environmental and genetic factors could have a lifelong impact on infants during pregnancy

The bill selected for the purpose of this legislative analysis is titled the Stop Infant Mortality and Recidivism Reduction Act of 2016, and is also recognized by the abbreviation SIMARRA Act. The bill number is 5,130 in the House of Representatives, and has no related bills in the Senate. The SIMARRA Act is a federal bill that was last referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations for further review and analysis.

Infant mortality rate constitutes the death of a baby before their first birthday. Mortality rates around the world differ tremendously with America leading the first world countries at an alarming rate of 6.1 deaths per 1,000 births. Conversely, Finland and Japan secure the last, most desirable position, with deaths totaling 2.3 per 1,000 births, as of 2010. (Ovaska-Few, 2015) In 2014, over 23,000 babies died in the United States. (CDC, 2016) Exploring the mortality rates in America brings light to a dire need for additional interventions and research as to why this developing nation has the highest rate of infant deaths before the age of 1 year old. African Americans face the worst outcomes of infant death compared to whites, Latino, and their Native American peers in North Carolina. (Ovaska-Few, 2015) This paper will explore why African American are the leading race for infant mortality and the steps that health communities need to take to address this devastating occurrence.

“Compared with European Americans, African American infants experience disproportionately high rates of low birth weight (LBW) and preterm delivery and are more than twice as likely to die during their 1st year of life”(Giscombé, C. L., & Lobel, M., 2005). The infant mortality rate for African Americans is 13.7 deaths per 1000 live births, more than twice the rate (5.7) for White Americans in the U.S. (Kung, Hoyert, Xu, & Murphy, 2008). A lot of the racial disparity in infant mortality can be explained by low birthweight and preterm delivery, which are also disproportionately and often experienced by African Americans (Martin et al., 2007).

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is a condition that many people still are trying to figure out why it happens to these babies. This syndrome is described as an unexplained death of an infant younger than one year of age. SIDS is frightening because it can strike without warning and affect a good, healthy infant. Most SIDS deaths occur at night and without warning. SIDS victims may have been down for sleep for as little as ten minutes, they show signs of struggle or suffering. Although SIDS is commonly associated with an infants sleep time, and often occurs in the crib. This event is not limited to the crib and may occur anywhere the infant is sleeping, deaths have occurred in

associations in a pathway model connecting race-based discrimination, stress, and negative preterm birth outcomes in African American women.

The first problem that needs to be addressed is simply the lack of access for women in vulnerable populations to prenatal care. This is a major problem because we see that the rate of women who

For the America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa assignment, I chose to watch the episode “Surviving Year One”. This episode was about the infant mortality rate in Rochester, New York. The infant mortality rate and the poverty rate for this area is very high. The episode also discussed pre-natal care, pregnancy stress, poverty, and marital services. In Rochester, African American babies are twice as likely to be victims of infant mortality or 11.46%. Other racial groups affected include: Puerto Ricans at 7.10%, Native Americans at 8.28%, and Whites at 5.18%. Not only are African American babies more prone to infant mortality, but preterm births hit this community hard at 16.3%. Factor possibly contributing to the infant mortality and preterm

In our community, disparities in mortality rates have been shown to be influenced by the unequal distribution of resources such as adequate income, quality nutrition, jobs, transportation, insurance enrollment, stable housing and education level. In Columbus, black families are more likely to be affected by poverty, joblessness and education deficits and in turn are more likely to experience an infant death. Considering this information, city government should enact laws, write policy, and develop programs that would decrease the infant mortality disparities in the black community and improve social and economic conditions (Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force,

Health disparities undoubtedly exist among different racial groups with Healthy People 2020 identifying reducing racial gaps and infant mortality as a critical objective (Loggins & Andrade, 2013). Black children are reportedly two times more likely to die during their first year of life than white children (Huffington Post). Furthermore, the overall infant mortality rate is 6 deaths per 1,000 births, but for African American infants the mortality rate is 13.31 deaths per 1,000 births (CDC). There have been many medical advances, such as prescreening to find health issues that contribute to health disparities, but each racial group still do not benefit equally.

Discuss disparities related to ethnic and cultural groups relative to low birth weight infants and preterm births.

Oddly enough, even with all the medical technological brought forth by the US we are still ranked with a higher infant death rate than Japan. In a study published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and titled "America's Health Starts with Healthy Children: How do States Compare?” the report found that the high infant death rate is correlated with the lack of education of the mother. Access to healthcare is another correlation to the problem since about 45 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, are now estimated to be without any form of health insurance (O'Connor, 2008).

In his article, "Why are so many U.S. women dying during childbirth?", Munz (2012) pointed out that U.S. is experiencing a rise in maternal mortality. It has doubled for the last 25 years and the experts are uncertain about the increase. Experts are not entirely clear for the rise in the maternal deaths in the U.S., but there are some aspects that may be link to this.

One of the biggest problems and issues that women currently face in regards to accessing health care in the U.S. is that, unfortunately, health care reform includes many harsh restrictions and limits on insurance coverage for abortion care and access to coverage for immigrant women. For example, Immigrant women must wait five years to be eligible for Medicaid. This is a problem because many women who cannot have access to Health insurance or any coverage can result in not getting the proper care or any care at all, and that can be dangerous for many women who is in need of figuring out what is happening with their bodies. This can lead to many illnesses, and/or death because the woman did not have the opportunity to check themselves.

According to The World Counts, there are about 14,987,562 births and counting, so far in the United States only. (The World Counts, 2017) Thousands of mothers are giving birth or even getting pregnant everyday so it is vital that their health is at maximum height not only for themselves, but for the babies and families as a whole. Mental health is an aspect which is commonly overlooked in the global maternal and child care agenda, when across the board, many pregnant or women of child bearing age are actually undergoing an unhealthy mental state.