What Do Infant Mortality Rates Tell Us about the Quality of Care?
Not very much apparently. Indigenous population babies have much higher infant mortality rates almost everywhere:
The infant mortality rate for native babies in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand is up to four times that of non-native newborns, says a groundbreaking new study.
In Canada, the infant mortality rate for children on reserves is twice that of non-natives, the study finds. Inuit babies are four times more likely to die.
Good post. It’s the kind of information we never get in the orthodox health press.
Whenever you see comparisons of US infant mortality with that of other countries it is almost never pointed out that they are comparing mainly homogeneous populations with our very heterogeneous population.
Anyone familiar with the literature knows that infant mortalilty rates tell us very little about the quality of health care.
just about every critique of the US health care system that brings up differential infant mortality rates within the US implies that if we socialize the system — like Canada or Britain — these inequalities will go away.
Glad to see confirmation that this argument is hogwash.