Report throws new light on infant mortality

Press, 21 December 1981, Page 18

Report throws new light on infant mortality

From an NZPA correspondent in Washington, D.C.

The Soviet Union and Brazil

along with the city of Washington, D.C. have recently recorded increases in their infant mortality rates, -calling into

Siestion a century-old pattern at linked rising affluence

with declining infant mortality, j A new study says that "a high or rising infant mortality rate, or even one that fails to decline with income gains, is the sign of a development process gone astray.” The report “Infant" Mortality and the : .Health of Societies,” was prepared for Wprldwatch Institute, ~a Washington-based international research Organisation.

“On the other handi a rapidly

. declining rate may indicate an \ improvement in social and en-

vironmental conditions that is \ disguised by slow growth of the . Gross National Product,” the / study says. ' ; ■ ■ “The infant mortality rate is usually , expressed as the num-

ber of babies out of each thousand born alive who die before reaching the age of one. For the world as a whole the infant mortality rate is 97 per thousand. That is, roughly one child out of every ten does not live to see its first birthday. However, among the most deprived people in the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, infant mortality rates as high as 200 are still found.” By contrast, fewer than 10 babies per thousand bom alive die in societies such as Sweden and Japan, said Kathleen Newland, author, of the report. The difference between the high and the low ends of this range is not simply the result of poverty and affluence, according to the study. There are poor countries such as Sri Lanka and China where the infant mortaury rate is low, as well as rich ones such as Libya and Saudi Arabia where it is . high. .

“The level of infant mortality is regarded as one of the most revealing measures ’ of how well a society is meeting the needs of its people,” the study says. In defiance of a general postwar trend infant mortality rates have risen in a number of areas, the study says. Washington, D.C. recorded a 10 per cent increase in its infant mortality rate in a single year — from 22.2 deaths per thousand births in 1979 to 24.6 in 1980 — giving the city a rate nearly twice the national average. In Brazil, a similar problem exists on a far greater scale. In its largest city, Sao Paulo, the infant mortality rate rose from 63 per thousand in 1961 to 95 in 1973.

The Soviet Union presents the most clear-cut example of a country-wide increase in infant deaths, rising from a rate of 26 in 1971 to one of 36 in 1976, the study says.