Infant Mortality Rate

infant mortality rate, measure of human infant deaths in a group younger than one year of age. It is an important indicator of the overall physical health of a community. Preserving the lives of newborns has been a long-standing issue in public health, social policy, and humanitarian endeavours. High infant mortality rates are generally indicative of unmet human health needs in sanitation, medical care, nutrition, and education.

The infant mortality rate is an age-specific ratio used by epidemiologists, demographers, physicians, and social scientists to better understand the extent and causes of infant deaths. To compute a given year’s infant mortality rate in a certain area, one would need to know how many babies were born alive in the area during the period and how many babies who were born alive died before their first birthday during that time. The number of infant deaths is then divided by the number of infant births, and the results are multiplied by 1,000 so that the rate reflects the number of infant deaths per 1,000 births in a standardized manner. Alternately, the rate could be multiplied by 10,000 or 1,000,000, depending on the desired comparison level.

There are a number of causes of infant mortality, including poor sanitation, poor water quality, malnourishment of the mother and infant, inadequate prenatal and medical care, and use of infant formula as a breast milk substitute. Women’s status and disparities of wealth are also reflected in infant mortality rates. In areas where women have few rights and where there is a large income difference between the poor and the wealthy, infant mortality rates tend to be high. Contributing to the problem are poor education and limited access to birth control, both of which lead to high numbers of births per mother and short intervals between births. High-frequency births allow less recovery time for mothers and entail potential food shortages in poor families. When women are educated, they are more likely to give birth at later ages and to seek better health care and better education for their children, including their daughters.