N.C. infant mortality rate steady in 2005
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
The Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C.
North Carolina’s infant mortality rate remained constant in 2005, but the rate among minorities was more than double that of white infants, according to state statistics released Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the state recorded 123,040 births in 2005, the most ever for the state.
The statewide infant mortality rate _ 8.8 deaths for every 1,000 births _ remained unchanged from the year before, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported.
The minority infant mortality rate was 14.9 percent last year, down 4.5 percent from 2004 but still more than double the 6.4 percent mortality rate for whites. In 2004, the white infant mortality rate was 6.2 percent.
Health care providers, sate and national agencies, and nonprofit groups are working to alleviate the disparity, said state Health Director Leah Devlin.
"In North Carolina, childhood poverty rates are substantially higher than in the nation as a whole," Devlin said.
"The bottom line is that we all need to be doing much more on the national, state, local and individual levels to improve people’s health," Devlin added. "That’s the only way we can hope to lower our state’s infant mortality rates and to eliminate the multiple health disparities that hit our minority populations especially hard." (more…)
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