Misleading Infant mortality rates
Why the gap between the U.S. and the others? The key is immigration and diversity of population.
The U.S. has a far higher immigration rate than any comparable country, and is, consequently, a more heterogeneous population than any of its Western European peers (despite looming immigration pressures in France, Holland and the U.K.). And Cuba is about as homogeneous as a country can get.
Heterogeneous populations, as might be expected, have widely varying infant health care patterns related to different ethnic groups and their living standards. Infant mortality rates in New York City, for example, averaged 6 per 1,000 live births in recent statistics. However, “children born to black non-Hispanic mothers have an infant mortality rate of 10.0, more than twice the rate of those born to white non-Hispanic mothers (4.2),” according to the New York Department of Health and Hygiene.
http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogs...misleading.htmlTable 1 shows data on infant death rates (p), and infant
survival rates (1 -p) by race during 1940-82 . If one compares
the last two table columns, it becomes clear that the
ratio of the death rates and the ratio of the survival rates
give opposite answers to the question-what happened to
the relative chances of black infants surviving versus white
infants? The ratio of death rates (black to white) shows the
situation worsening for blacks, while the ratio of survival
rates shows their relative situation improving. Because blacks
started from a higher death rate level, a significantly larger
absolute decline in their mortality rate amounted to a smaller
relative decline than whites experienced. And because their
survival rate started from a lower level than whites, it must
have increased by a greater percentage . As noted, without
data to combine (p) and (I - p) for each group, we can only
conclude that there was no significant change in relative
status .
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/06/rpt1full.pdfThis is what I have always believed to be the truth, and it is supported by personal conversations I have had with various ER Doc's that have worked overseas. They would complain about letting new borns die, when they knew that if they were in the US they could have been saved. Primi medical care is extremely expensive and most of these countries don't even have primi units to even try to save the lives of these babys.
High infant mortality rates can skew the statistical data in a misleading way. Yes, these statistics are "acurate," but they create a false picture of the truth about reasonable life span expectancies, and the causes and effects going into this.
Today, all sorts of heroic efforts are made to enable babies (particularly ones born prematurely) to survive.
In the past, they would have died. It is nice that these babies can now be saved, but infant mortality rates will always have a certain skewing effect on the entire facts involved in longevity rates.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Disinformation 
Columbus Townhall > Forum > Politics > National > Health Care (Moderators: Peter, CTH Public Relations)
Topic: Canadian health care is crashing and burning
