New York Shows Improvement In Infant Mortality Numbers

The city's infant mortality rate — a barometer of its overall health — dropped to a record low in 2007, health officials are reporting.

The officials said there were 5.4 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2007, down from 5.9 in 2006. The rate was lower than the national infant mortality rate of 6.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.

The decline in the city's infant mortality rate also coincided with an uptick in the birth rate. In 2007, there were 128,961 babies born, 3,455 more than were born in 2006. Health officials attributed half of the increase to the city's Asian community, whose couples may have timed their pregnancies to occur during the Year of the Golden Pig, a lucky year in the Chinese lunar calendar.

There is no connection between the city's birth rate and the infant mortality rate, according to the health department's assistant commissioner for maternal, infant, and reproductive health, Deborah Kaplan, who stressed that the infant mortality rate is "considered the most sensitive indicator of a community's health." She cited several reasons for the recent decline, including city programs designed to improve prenatal and infant care, such as the Nurse-Family Partnership and the Newborn Home Visiting Program.

Still, the data show a significant gap among infant mortality rates along racial lines. According to the health department, the infant mortality rate among black babies was 9.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2007, compared with 3.9 deaths for every 1,000 live births among white babies. "We are heading in the right direction," the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a statement, adding: "We need to expand services for these groups and communities."

New York is one of the few cities where local health officials calculate infant mortality rates, which are typically recorded on a state level. In New York State, the average infant mortality rate was 6.02 in 2003-05, the most recent period for which data is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The District of Columbia had the highest rate during that period, with an infant mortality rate of 12.22 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The lowest was in Minnesota, with a rate of 4.78 deaths for every 1,000 live births. California's rate was 5.22, while the rate in Illinois was 7.53 and the rate in Texas was 6.45.

The infant mortality rate in America as a whole is higher than some other wealthy nations.

In a 2005 paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers analyzed the connection between infant mortality and income in four major world cities, New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. In their conclusion, the authors — a professor at New York University, Victor Rodwin, and a professor at Boston University, Leland Neuberg — wrote: "In stark contrast to Tokyo, Paris, and London, the association of income and infant mortality rate was strongly evident in Manhattan."