United States Has Higher Death Rate
Than Most Other Countries

Excerpted from
State of the WORLD’S MOTHERS 2007
Saving the Lives of Children Under 5
Report by Save The Children
1may2007

Child Deaths in the Developed World

Child Death Rates in the United States

Although the under-5 mortality rate in the United States has fallen in recent decades, it is still higher than many other wealthy nations – 2.3 times that of Iceland and more than 75 percent higher than the rate of the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden.

The causes of child deaths in the industrialized world differ dramatically from those in developing countries. In the developing world, over half of under-5 deaths are caused by pneumonia, diarrhea or newborn conditions. In the industrialized world, these problems rarely lead to death. Children’s deaths are most likely the result of injury suffered in traffic accidents, intentional harm, drowning, falling, fire and poisoning.²²⁵

Throughout the industrialized world, children from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be injured or killed. Factors such as single parenthood, low levels of maternal education, teenage motherhood, substandard housing, large family size and parental drug or alcohol abuse increase the risks that a child will not survive to age 5.²²⁶

Children are far more likely to die during the first year of life than they are at older ages. And death rates for males are substantially higher than rates for females for every age group of children.²²⁷

In the United States, American-Indian, Alaska- Native and African-American children have the highest death rates.²²⁸

Here are some additional facts about child mortality in the industrialized world:

• Only about 1 percent of the 10 million under-5 deaths every year occur in wealthy countries.²²⁹
  
  
• Iceland has the world’s lowest child mortality rate (3 per 1,000 live births).
  
  
• Romania has the highest child mortality rate in the more developed world (19 per 1,000 live births).
  
  
• Out of 44 more developed countries, the United States is tied for 26th place with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. In all three countries there are 7 child deaths per 1,000 live births.
  
  
• There are 14 countries with higher under-5 mortality rates than the United States. They are: Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Ukraine, Macedonia, Russia, Albania and Romania.
  
  
• Within the United States, Connecticut has the lowest child death rate (19.6 deaths among children ages 1 to 4 per 100,000 children) and Wyoming has the highest rate (53.7 deaths per 100,000 children).
  
  
• In the United States, between 1980 and 2003, death rates dropped by 46 percent for infants and 51 percent for children ages 1 to 4.²³⁰
  
  
• American-Indian children ages 1 to 4 have the highest death rates (49 per 100,000), followed by African-American children (46 per 100,000), Hispanic children (29 per 100,000), non-Hispanic white children (28 per 100,000) and Asian/Pacific Islander children (23 per 100,000).²³¹
  
  
• Among wealthy nations, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands have the lowest rates of child deaths due to injury. In the United States and Portugal, the rates of child injury death are twice as high.²³²
  
  
• One in 71 mothers in the United States is likely to lose a child before his or her fifth birthday. A mother in the United States has a 2.5 fold greater risk of experiencing the death of a child than a mother in Iceland, Italy or Japan and is almost 3 times more likely to lose a child than a mother in the Czech Republic or Slovakia.
  
  
• Whereas only 1 child in 100,000 in the United States dies of pneumonia each year, roughly 1 in 15 children in Angola, Afghanistan, Niger and Sierra Leon die of pneumonia each year. Children in these countries are 6,700 times more likely to die of pneumonia than children in the United States.
  
  
• More than 16,500 lives could be saved each year in the United States alone if our under-5 mortality rate was the same as Iceland. If the U.S. rate of under-5 mortality was similar to that of France, Germany and Italy (all 4 per 1,000 live births), over 12,000 child lives could be spared.
  
  
• In the eastern countries of Europe, social inequalities are increasing and the AIDS epidemic is growing rapidly, putting more children at risk of death.²³³

NOTES

225 UNICEF. A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations. Innocenti Report Card 2. (UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre: Florence: 2001) p.3

226 UNICEF. Child Poverty in Perspective:An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries,” Innocenti Report Card 7. (UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre: Florence: 2007 ) p.15

227 UNICEF. A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations. p.2

228 Child Trends DataBank. Infant, Child, and Youth Death Rates, www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators /63ChildMortality.cfm and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“Injury Mortality Among American Indian and Alaska Native Children and Youth – United States, 1989-1998,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.Vol. 52, No. 30.August 1, 2003. pp.697-701

229 UNICEF. State of the World’s Children 2007. Table 1, p.105

230 Child Trends DataBank. Infant, Child, and Youth Death Rates.

231 Ibid.

232 UNICEF. A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations. p.4

233 WHO Regional Office for Europe. The European Health Report 2005: Public Health Action for Healthier Children and Populations. (Denmark: 2005) pp.4-5 and Child and Adolescent Health and Development. www.euro.who.int/childhealtdev/infants /20060919_6

Graph source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Health Data for All Ages. www.cdc.gov/nchs/ health_data_for_all_ages.htm. Rates are three-year annual averages (2000-2003). Data are not available for Vermont.

source (1.9 MB PDF): 27may2007