DISCRIMINATORY RISK FACTORS IN POST-NEONATAL SUDDEN UNEXPLAINED DEATH1

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Abstract
Kraus, J. F., C. E. Franti and N. O. Borhani (Dept. of Community Health, Univ. of California School of Medicine, Davis, Calif. 95616). Discriminatory risk factors in post-neonatal sudden unexplained death. Am J Epidemiol 96: 328–333, 1972.—Many factors which are routinely reported on live birth certificates have been found to be associated with sudden unexplained death in infancy. Each of these factors has been evaluated individually without regard to its possible interaction with other factors also related to sudden unexplained death. Utilizing a stepwise discriminant analytic procedure, live birth certificate information for all cases of sudden unexplained death among the 1968 California live birth cohort was compared to similar information for a sample of infants from the same cohort who survived their post-neonatal period. The variables with relatively high discriminatory power were age of mother, total number of children born alive, birth weight, multiple birth, duration of prenatal care and sex of the infant. The best discriminating variables for high risk infants (blacks and American Indians) were found to be substantially different from those for low risk infants (whites and Orientals). This finding suggests that different phenomena may account for sudden unexplained death between the two different racial-cultural groups.

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