Infant Mortality and Asian Americans

Infant Mortality and Asian

  • Asian women generally have lower infant mortality rates than the overall population, however recent statistics for Asian American subgroups are limited for this topic.
  • Asian American infants are 40 percent more likely to die from maternal complications as compared to non-Hispanic white mothers.

Infant Mortality Rate

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2017
AsianNon-Hispanic WhiteAll RacesAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
3.84.75.80.8

Source: CDC 2019. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

Leading Causes of Infant Mortality

Infant deaths and mortality rates for the top 5 leading causes of death - Asians , 2017 (Rates per 100,000 live births)
Cause of Death (By rank)#Asian DeathsAsian Death Rate#Non-Hispanic White DeathsNon-Hispanic White Death RateAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
(1) Congenital malformations 21184.72,138107.30.8
(2) Low-Birthweight16265.01,26063.21.0
(3) Maternal complications8333.347023.61.4
(7) Accidents (unintentional injuries)2510.061931.10.3
(8) Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)19--68834.5--

Source: CDC 2019. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 5.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

Characteristics of Mother

Percentage of mothers who received prenatal care (first trimester), 2017
Asian AmericanNon-Hispanic WhiteAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
81.182.41.0

Source: CDC 2019. Births: Final Data for 2017 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2017
Asian AmericanNon-Hispanic WhiteAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
5.14.51.1

Source: CDC 2019. Births: Final Data for 2017 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2017
Asian AmericansNon-Hispanic WhiteAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
0.510.10.05

Source: CDC 2019. Births: Final Data for 2017 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf [987.68KB]

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2017
Age of MotherAsian AmericanNon-Hispanic WhiteAsian / Non-Hispanic White Ratio
Under 20 years--8.5--
20-24 years4.86.10.8
25-29 years3.44.60.7
30-34 years3.63.80.9
35-39 years3.94.11.0
40-54 years4.85.30.9

Source: CDC 2019. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]

*All data in the above surveys relate to non-Hispanic Asian Americans.