The NYT has a lengthy article, Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis (4/11/18 by Linda Villarosa) and Kevin Drum follows this up with the handy chart posted here in his post Our Disgraceful Infant Mortality Epidemic. He notes that although infant morality has decreased the difference between Black and White infant morality has increase (by percentage):
In 1950, according to the CDC, the black rate of infant mortality was 64 percent higher than the white rate. Today it’s 133 percent higher
We also aren’t keeping up with the rest of world:
In 1960, we ranked 11th in infant mortality among rich countries. Not great, but not terrible. Today we rank 24th out of 27 rich countries, ahead of only Turkey, Mexico, and Chile.
You can find infant mortality data at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics page (tables 10-13).
