FOCUSING ON NORTH AMERICA
A Global Analysis of Infant Mortality Rate
Prepared by: Vanessa Laguerre, Vanessa DaRosa, Evelyn Suatoni, Sabreena Hussain
Instructor: Adiebonye Jumbo, PhD
Medical Informatics Program, College of Health-Related Professions, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
LOOKING AT THE DATA (global)
How does Infant Mortality vary throughout the world?
- Research proposes that differences in genetic and biological makeup influence this trend, however, further studies need to be conducted to explore more factors.
- According to the CDC, Mississippi had the highest infant mortality rate in 2019.
- Factors contributing to Mississippi’s high rate is a high premature birth rate as well as limited accessibility to medical care.
1 Ester PV, Torres A, Freire JM, et al. Factors associated to infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Public Health in Africa 2011;2:27. doi:10.4081/jphia.2011.e27.
2 Callaghan W. 240: Explaining the recent decrease in US infant mortality rate, 2007-2013. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2016;214. doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2015.10.278.
3 CDC: Infant Mortality. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/infantmortality.htm. (accessed 13 Dec 2021).
4 Ester PV, Torres A, Freire JM, et al. Factors associated to infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. J Public Health Africa: 2011;2(2).
5 WHO: The Global Health Observatory - Infant mortality rate. 2021. https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/1. (accessed 13 Dec 2021).
6 Pongou R. Why is infant mortality rate higher in boys than girls? Demography: 2013;50(2).
7 Kaggle: Infant Mortality. 2021. https://www.kaggle.com/komalkhetlani/infant-mortality. (accessed 13 Dec 2021.
- The line graph displays the infant mortality rate vs the year ranging from 2010-2019. It also shows in blue the male rate vs the female rate in orange. There has been a significant decrease in infant mortality rate ranging from 2010-2019. Although, research found that in 2018 there was a peak in infant mortality rate in 2018, then a trending decline the following year.
- Unfortunately, developing countries have many data reporting errors when it comes to many aspects of medical care including infant mortality rate. This makes it difficult to determine the severity of the situation and allocate necessary resources to the countries in need.
- Medication errors happen frequently due to lack of resources.
- Medical staff limited which goes hand in hand with lack of resources as well as socioeconomic factors.
- According to the CDC, the most common causes of infant mortality are: Birth Defects, Preterm Birth, Injuries, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and Maternal pregnancy complications.
- In order to improve infant mortality rates throughout the world, public health agencies, along with health care providers throughout their communities, need to work together to improve our understanding of Perinatal Care and SIDS. Additionally, data is crucial to the cause and is used in risk assessment and predictive models (EX: PRAMS)
- The scatter plot demonstrates the decrease over the years from 2010 – 2019 in infant mortality rate in North America. Blue showing the male rate of infant mortality rate which began at a higher rate and still remains higher than female but has increasingly gone down. Red is for female IMR which also shows a significant decrease between 2010 and 2019.
- The bar graph is showing the rate of Infant Mortality across the continents. As shown in the graph the continent with the highest rates of infant mortality are South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa followed by Central Asia, Northern Africa, and South Africa. There are many factors that lead/cause death in infants.
- Due to lack of resources, money, and information there is a rise in exposure to malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, HIV/AIDS. These parts of the world do not have access to clean water and health care as much compared to Australia, Canada, and North America. As a result, newborn babies are at higher risk for complications, thus impacting the Infant Mortality Rate.
- Stats: Max IMR = 6.67(M), Min IMR = 4.95(F), Mean IMR = 5.75.
- The histogram depicts how often a specific IMR occurs. As shown by the data, a rate of about 5 to 6 deaths/1,000 live births is the most common throughout the world. The frequency comes due to birth defects.
- The national target for healthy people is 6.0 deaths per 1,000 live births. The frequency is calculated based on estimated/calculated surveys and the comparability is made between countries.
The goal of this project is to compare infant mortality rate across different continents and identify countries that are in greater need of medical support. Additionally, this report aims to analyze how infant mortality rates have changed over time as well as looking at rates stratified by gender.