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Infant Mortality and Asian Americans

Infant Mortality and Asian

  • 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 non-Hispanic white mothers.

Infant Mortality Rate

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2017
Asian Non-Hispanic White All Races Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
3.8 4.7 5.8 0.8

Source:  CDC 2019.  Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set.  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

Leading Causes of Infant Mortality

Infant deaths and mortality rates for the top 5 leading causes of death - Asians , 2017  (Rates per 100,000 live births)
Cause of Death
(By rank)
#Asian Deaths Asian Death Rate #Non-Hispanic White Deaths Non-Hispanic White Death Rate Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
(1) Congenital malformations 211 84.7 2,138 107.3 0.8
(2) Low-Birthweight 162 65.0 1,260 63.2 1.0
(3) Maternal complications 83 33.3 470 23.6 1.4
(7) Accidents (unintentional  injuries) 25 10.0 619 31.1 0.3
(8) Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 19 -- 688 34.5 --

Source:  CDC 2019.  Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set.  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 5.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

Characteristics of Mother

Percentage of mothers who received prenatal care (first trimester), 2017
Asian American Non-Hispanic White Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
81.1 82.4 1.0

Source:  CDC 2019.  Births: Final Data for 2017  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2017
Asian American Non-Hispanic White Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
5.1 4.5 1.1

Source:  CDC 2019.  Births: Final Data for 2017  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2017
Asian Americans Non-Hispanic White Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
0.5 10.1 0.05

Source:  CDC 2019.  Births: Final Data for 2017  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2017
Age of Mother Asian American Non-Hispanic White Asian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
Under 20 years -- 8.5 --
20-24 years 4.8 6.1 0.8
25-29 years 3.4 4.6 0.7
30-34 years 3.6 3.8 0.9
35-39 years 3.9 4.1 1.0
40-54 years 4.8 5.3 0.9

Source:  CDC 2019.  Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set.  National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

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

Last Modified: 11/8/2019 4:20:00 PM