Alabama’s infant mortality rate has climbed to the highest level since 2016, according to new data shared by the Alabama State Committee of Public Health.
Officials attribute the climb to poverty and a lack of access to health care.
“The news was not as good as we would have liked this year,” said State Health Officer Scott Harris during the Nov. 14 meeting. “This is the highest number we’ve had since 2016, this is a statistically significant difference from last year, which is very concerning.”
The new data shows that for 2023, Alabama’s infant mortality rate was 7.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births, a statistically significant jump from the rate of 6.7 reported for 2022, an all-time low for the state. Compared to the national infant mortality rate for 2023 of 5.6, Alabama’s rate is among the highest in the country, where it has remained historically.
Broken down by ethnicity, the infant mortality rate for white infants was 5.7 per 1,000, a significant increase from the 4.3 recorded the previous year that accounted for a majority of the overall increase, Harris said. While the infant mortality rate for Black infants did not increase as drastically, the Black infant mortality rate was more than twice as high as white infants at 13 per 1,000.
“Even though the rates among Black infants are still way too high, there wasn’t much year-to-year variation in that group,” Harris said, noting the Black infant mortality rate increase from 12.4 per 1,000 to 13 between 2022 and 2023. “The group that explains the difference is low birth-weight, premature white babies, that’s where we saw the increase that led to the change.”
Closer look
Measured in sheer numbers, there were 449 infant deaths in 2023; 229 white, and 204 Black. The infant mortality rate measures the number of deaths among infants, excluding miscarriages, who die within one year of birth, and then compared to the number of births that year, which in 2023 was around 57,800.
While approximately 45% of all infant births in the state are paid for through Medicaid, the state’s low-income health care program and an indicator for poverty, 52% of the infant deaths in 2023 were those whose births were paid for through Medicaid, a statistically significant correlation tying poverty to increased instances of infant mortality.
Harris noted that, outside of ongoing factors such as a general lack of access to health care and poverty, there weren’t any new factors immediately apparent that could explain the sharp increase in infant deaths.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Alexander Willis and originally published by Alabama Daily News. It is reprinted with permission.
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