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HIV/AIDS and Asian Americans

  • 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 White mothers.

Infant Mortality Rate

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2018
Asian* White* All Races Asian / White Ratio
3.8 4.6 5.8 0.8

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

Leading Causes of Infant Mortality

Infant deaths and mortality rates for the top 5 leading causes of death for African Americans, 2018 (Rates per 100,000 live births)
Cause of Death
(By rank)		 # Asian Deaths Asian Death Rate # White Deaths White Death Rate Asian / White Ratio
(1) Low-Birthweight 184 76.4 2,178 111.3 0.7
(2) Congenital Malformations 151 62.7 1,215 62.1 1.0
(3) Maternal Complications 72 29.9 446 22.8 1.3
(4) Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 28 11.8 580 29.7 0.4
(5) Accidents (unintentional injuries) 23 9.6 635 32.5 0.3

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 4.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

Characteristics of Mother

Percentage of mothers who received prenatal care (first trimester), 2019
Asian White Asian / White Ratio
82.1 82.8 1.0

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

Percentage of mothers who received late or no prenatal care, 2019
Asian White Asian / White Ratio
5.0 4.5 1.1

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

Percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy, 2019
Asian White Asian / White Ratio
0.4 8.8 0.05

Source: CDC 2021. Births: Final Data for 2019 National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 13.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-02-508.pdf [PDF 1MB]

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, 2018
Age of Mother Asian White Asian / White Ratio
Under 20 years -- 8.5 --
20-24 years 4.8 6.1 0.8
25-29 years 3.1 4.7 0.7
30-34 years 3.5 3.6 1.0
35-39 years 3.6 4.1 0.9
40-54 years 5.9 5.6 1.1

Source: CDC 2020. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2018 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-508.pdf [PDF 487KB]

*All data in the above surveys relate to non-Hispanic Asian and non-Hispanic whites.
Last Modified: 7/9/2021 9:24:00 AM

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