Marc YachtThe infant mortality rate — defined as the death of an infant in the first year of life per 1,000 births — is a bellwether statistic. A nation’s quality of health care as well as the overall wellbeing of citizens can be deduced from this statistic. This rate has broad implications for any nation, state, or large city.
Leading causes for high death rates are birth asphyxia, pneumonia, sudden infant death syndrome, pre-term birth complications, diarrhea, malaria, and malnutrition. Other factors such as the mother’s level of education, stress, age, state of health, home environment, medical care, safe drinking water, immunization levels, and sophisticated public health infrastructures all impact a country’s infant mortality rate.
The infant mortality rate suggests much more than the death of infants in the first year of life. The rate implies whether a nation is investing in the health of its communities through health access, the eradication of poverty and homelessness, repair of bridges, municipal systems and other infrastructure needs. All residents are impacted by these investments; not just the poor. Tens of millions of Americans live in extreme poverty. Sixteen million are children. Many programs reaching out to this population have been gutted.
Florida fares worse compared to U.S. data. On average 6.9 Florida babies will die per 1,000 in the first year of life. Afro Americans suffer a 10.5 death rate and white non-Hispanic 5.2. The U.S. rate for deaths is 6.1 overall — 5.0 for white non-Hispanics and 11.2 for Afro Americans. Countries with universal healthcare all show better health indicators, including the infant mortality rate, than the United States. After seeing rates improve through 2008, U.S. rates have remained stagnant.
The United States has the worst infant mortality rate among 25 developed nations. Finland and Japan have the best rates at 2.3 respectively. Italy and Germany are in the middle of the pack with 3.4 and the United States bottoms out the list at 6.1 deaths per 1,000 births. Deborah Campbell, a professor of clinical pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, was quoted as saying, “That the U.S. lags behind other developed nations [is] because there remain significant gaps in access to and utilization of prenatal and preconception care.”
America’s last place on the list for affluent nations cannot be excused or explained away. Arguments that our efforts to save very sick babies’ bias the finding fall short of the clear issues that weigh heavily on the overall health of Americans. Those issues are complex and required decades of neglect. Countries that provide health care for all their citizens have healthier populations; that’s a fact. But there are other factors.
The state of repair in our communities: including needed dollars to improve roads, bridges, and effective public health authority affect health risks. Effective regulation to make our communities safer is often sacrificed to political influence. Water systems and other municipal services may suffer from decades of abandon. Hostile workplace policy denying health benefits and poor wages add to the mix. Public education falters from shrinking resources. Obstructionism, ideological influences and political fights make needed progress difficult. Our students continue to fall behind the success of other nations who commit to public education. All impact a community’s state of health and wellbeing.
The final blow to the waning quality of life in America is the shameful failure to protect its citizens with universal health coverage. The wealthy cannot escape health risks when 20 percent of the American population does not have equitable access to health care. The single payer system establishing Medicare for all, Bill H.R.676, languishes in Congress a victim of lobbying influences.
There is not a politician — Republican, Independent, or Democrat — that cannot see the advantage of single-payer universal health care. Those nations with universal healthcare have healthier populations than the United States. The attacks on U.S. universal health care come from empty suits made rich through contributions from those protecting this nation’s broken privatized healthcare system.
We as a rich nation have no bragging rights relating to the overall health and wellbeing of our communities. The U.S. infant mortality rate conveys that message.
Dr. Marc Yacht is a retired physician living in Hudson, Fla. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
