Black American Infants, Children Have Persistent Excess Mortality
WEDNESDAY, March 26, 2025 -- Black Americans, including infants and children, have persistent excess mortality relative to White Americans, according to a study published online March 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Angel Paternina-Caicedo, M.D., from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, and colleagues examined excess infant and childhood mortality in Black Americans between 1950 and 2019. Mortality data obtained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Census Bureau were analyzed, and the absolute and relative sex- and age-specific excess mortality burden was compared for Black versus White Americans.
The researchers found that starting in 1950, the gaps in absolute life expectancy and age-standardized mortality decreased between Black and White Americans during the 70-year period, but there was an increase in relative mortality in infants and children during the same period. In the 1950s, the mortality rates were 2,703 and 5,181 deaths per 100,000 persons for White and Black infants, respectively, for an excess mortality ratio of 1.92. In the 2010s, the corresponding mortality rates were 499 and 1,073 deaths per 100,000 persons in White and Black infants, for an excess mortality ratio of 2.15. If mortality rates for Black Americans were equal to those of White Americans, a total of 5.0 million excess deaths (including 522,617 infants) could have been avoided during these seven decades.
"Racial inequalities in infant and childhood mortality between Black and White Americans have not decreased in 70 years in the United States, with Black infants and children consistently having nearly twice the risk for death of White infants and children," the authors write.
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