Infant Mortality Trends in the Soviet Union

This article examines the reliability of the Unions statistical reporting system and the extent to which improvements in reporting have affected regional and national infant mortality rates. [The] investigation of the registration system provides persuasive evidence that much of the highly publicized increase in infant mortality rates is due to increasingly comprehensive reporting of infant deaths in the Muslim southern tier (the four Central Asian republics Azerbaydzhan Kazakhstan and the Muslim autonomous republics in the RSFSR or Russian Federated Socialist Republics). The authors note that Soviet efforts to tighten up birth and death registration have produced rapid increases in recorded infant mortality rates in these regions. These increases have fueled the much less dramatic rise in overall USSR rates which have in turn contributed to the decline in reported life expectancy. (summary in FRE SPA) (EXCERPT)