HIV/AIDS and Asian Americans

  • Asian women generally have lower infant mortality rates than the overall population, however recent statistics for Asian American subgroups are limited for this topic.
  • Asian American infants are 40 percent more likely to die from maternal complications as compared to White mothers.

Infant Mortality Rate

Asian*White*All RacesAsian / White Ratio
3.84.65.80.8
Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2018

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

Leading Causes of Infant Mortality

Cause of Death(By rank)# Asian DeathsAsian Death Rate# White DeathsWhite Death RateAsian / White Ratio
(1) Low-Birthweight18476.42,178111.30.7
(2) Congenital Malformations15162.71,21562.11.0
(3) Maternal Complications7229.944622.81.3
(4) Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)2811.858029.70.4
(5) Accidents (unintentional injuries)239.663532.50.3
Infant deaths and mortality rates for the top 5 leading causes of death for African Americans, 2018 (Rates per 100,000 live births)

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 4.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

Characteristics of Mother

AsianWhiteAsian / White Ratio
82.182.81.0
Percentage of mothers who received prenatal care (first trimester), 2019

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

AsianWhiteAsian / White Ratio
5.04.51.1
Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2019

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

AsianWhiteAsian / White Ratio
0.48.80.05
Percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy, 2019

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

Age of MotherAsian WhiteAsian / White Ratio
Under 20 years--8.5--
20-24 years4.86.10.8
25-29 years3.14.70.7
30-34 years3.53.61.0
35-39 years3.64.10.9
40-54 years5.95.61.1
Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2018

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

*All data in the above surveys relate to non-Hispanic Asian and non-Hispanic whites.