Social, Economic, and Biologic Correlates of Infant Mortality in City Neighborhoods

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Abstract
The extent to which low infant birth wt intervenes in associations between infant mortality and social and economic characteristics of populations residing in Cleveland [USA] neighborhoods was determined. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was applied to a proposed causal ordering of variables where racial composition and low family income were hypothesized to relate directly to illegitimacy and low-birth-wt ratios, which were postulated to directly influence neonatal and postneonatal rates. The analysis showed that racial composition and low-family-income levels of neighborhoods almost perfectly predicted illegitmacy ratios; that racial composition and illegitimacy highly predicted low-birth-wt ratios; and that neonatal and postneonatal mortality rates were strongly determined by low-birth-wt levels. These findings suggest why, despite the dramatic decline in infant mortality in the past century, many studies undertaken in western Europe and the USA still continue to show a strong inverse relationship between indices of social class and infant loss.

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