Key Issues in Infant Mortality

Infant mortality is a grim topic. We take refuge in vital statistics. The infant mortality rate of the richest country in the world, the United States of America, ranks 13th among the many countries reporting their data reasonably reliably.12 The present rate of 21-713 is a disgrace and totally unacceptable. The map of this country is marked with flags of shame-denoting high rates clustered in major urban areas and in poverty-ridden sections of the deep South and West. Urgent application to aetiology and to solutions is manda-tory. Comparisons between groups, countries, and races are helpful. Let us be clear on definitions. The infant mortality rate is the number of infant