The Infant Mortality Rate, Life Expectancy at Birth, and a Linear Index of Mortality as Measures of General Health Status

The infant mortality rate is not a good indicator of overall mortality or health status. Based on new empirical life tables from the UN Population Division, it can only predict life expectancy with 95% confidence to within a 14-year range. Two infant mortality rates must be nearly 80 units apart to be 95% confident that life expectancy in the two communities is different. Life expectancy itself is not an ideal general measure of mortality, because it implicitly weights deaths at different ages in an inconsistent fashion. A measure of potential years of life lost is preferable because it is ethically more consistent.