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Health - NCHS Publications & Products
Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health of a nation. This report describes the recent decline in the U.S. infant mortality rate from 2005 through 2011. Changes in infant mortality rates over time are examined by age at death, maternal race and ethnicity, cause of death, and state. The linked birth/infant death data set (linked file) is generally the preferred source for infant mortality rates by race and ethnicity. This is particularly important for racial and ethnic groups other than non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic. For these three groups, rates calculated from the mortality and linked files have been very similar for many years, and trends are unlikely to differ. Thus, data from the mortality file are used for this analysis because of their greater timeliness. Data for 2011 are preliminary. Because preliminary data are not available by state, data for the 2005-2010 period were used for the geographic analysis.
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