- 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 Races | Asian / White Ratio |
| 3.8 | 4.6 | 5.8 | 0.8 |
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 Deaths | Asian Death Rate | # White Deaths | White Death Rate | Asian / White Ratio |
| (1) Low-Birthweight | 184 | 76.4 | 2,178 | 111.3 | 0.7 |
| (2) Congenital Malformations | 151 | 62.7 | 1,215 | 62.1 | 1.0 |
| (3) Maternal Complications | 72 | 29.9 | 446 | 22.8 | 1.3 |
| (4) Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) | 28 | 11.8 | 580 | 29.7 | 0.4 |
| (5) Accidents (unintentional injuries) | 23 | 9.6 | 635 | 32.5 | 0.3 |
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
| Asian | White | Asian / White Ratio |
| 82.1 | 82.8 | 1.0 |
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]
| Asian | White | Asian / White Ratio |
| 5.0 | 4.5 | 1.1 |
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]
| Asian | White | Asian / White Ratio |
| 0.4 | 8.8 | 0.05 |
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 Mother | Asian | White | Asian / White Ratio |
| Under 20 years | -- | 8.5 | -- |
| 20-24 years | 4.8 | 6.1 | 0.8 |
| 25-29 years | 3.1 | 4.7 | 0.7 |
| 30-34 years | 3.5 | 3.6 | 1.0 |
| 35-39 years | 3.6 | 4.1 | 0.9 |
| 40-54 years | 5.9 | 5.6 | 1.1 |
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.
Last Edited: 07/09/2021