Infant Mortality and Economic Status in Metropolitan Ohio, Total and Cause-Specific: 1979–81 and 1989–91

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an ecological analysis of the relationship between infant mortality and economic status in a metropolitan aggregate comprised of six of the larger cities in Ohio covering the years 1979–81 and 1989–91. The primary analytical unit was the census tract of mother's usual residence. The independent variable was defined as the percentage of low-income families in each tract at the censuses of 1980 and 1990; the dependent variable data were counts of the number of deaths under age one in the three years centering on the censuses and counts of the number of live births during the census years. Results of the analysis revealed, first of all, that there continues to be a clear and pronounced inverse association between the aggregate economic status of an area and the probability that a newborn infant will not survive the first year of life. There are, however, some noteworthy race-cause differences. In general, the differential is much more marked for whites than for nonwhites; and there are a great many variations among the patterns of the relationship exhibited by the four leading causes of infant mortality. Only one cause, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, stood out as having a generally consistent and very strong inverse relationship with economic status. A conclusion discusses the implications of these findings in terms of some of the problems we face in trying to narrow the overall economic status differential.