Colombia has a much higher infant mortality rate than the United
States as a whole, but not when you examine the vast differences
among racial groups in the U.S. CDC data spanning from 2006 to
2008 show that black Americans in Hawaii, Indiana, Ohio,
Tennessee and Wisconsin all have infant mortality rates above 15
per 1,000 live births. This racial disparity is very much
present in Mississippi, too, where the rate over that period was
7.07 for white children compared with 13.82 for black children.
"It is my belief that is largely due to poverty and the social
determinants of health," Currier said about this divide. In
Mississippi, 40% of infants are born to black women, which could
be driving up the infant mortality rate for the state as a
whole, Lackritz said. Black women are also 50% more likely to
give birth to a premature baby, and no one knows why, the CDC
says. These demographic observations don't have to do with skin
pigment, Lackritz said, but rather associated factors such as
poverty, low socioeconomi