Citation

Wegman ME. Pediatrics 1990; 86(6): 835-847.

Affiliation

School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2029.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2251021

Abstract

US infant mortality continued to decline slowly and the provisional 1989 rate, 9.7 per 1000 live births, was the lowest ever recorded. Final 1988 data showed no change in cause of death distribution or in the wide discrepancy between white and black infant mortality. State rates varied from 6.8 in Vermont to 12.6 in Georgia. Worldwide, the US rate of 10.0 was bettered by 21 other countries, with Japan lowest at 4.8. Births increased in number and rate, because of a higher fertility rate and more women in the childbearing years. The birth rate to mothers 17 years of age and younger increased again. The proportion of women who had no or inadequate prenatal care was essentially unchanged. Deaths, crude death rate, and age-adjusted death rate decreased. The excess of births over deaths added almost 1.9 million persons to the US population, the highest rate of natural increase since 1971. The marriage rate was essentially unchanged, whereas the divorce rate decreased slightly, to the lowest level since 1973. With the exception of human immunodeficiency virus infection, homicide, and pulmonary malignancies, rates for most causes of death declined from 1988 to 1989. In comparison with 1940, most declines were substantial, led by pneumonia, down about 80%, and perinatal conditions, down about 75%. The only large-scale increases among major causes in the half century were in two diseases related to cigarette smoking: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, up eightfold, and respiratory cancer, up almost sixfold. Death rates from all other cancers, as a group, decreased by some 20% and from cardiovascular diseases by some 60%.

Language: en