Studies in Fetal and Infant Mortality. II. Differentials in Mortality by Sex and Race

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Abstract
A study of the host-environment relationships in fetal and infant mortality might help to elucidate some of the obscure aspects of the causation of these deaths. Two "host" factors that influence that part of mortality to a great extent are the race and sex of infant. In this work the differences in fetal and infant death by sex and race are presented, and an attempt is made at explaining these differences. Generally speaking, sex differences and race differences move in opposite directions, i. e., whenever sex differences are prominent, race differences are usually small, and vice versa. For example, the sex ratio in infant mortality is higher in the neonatal period, whereas the excess mortality among nonwhites is more marked in the postneonatal period. High infant mortality is usually accompanied by small sex differences and large race differences. And as the environment improves, sex differences increase while the differences by race diminish. The implication is that the main factors underlying sex differences in mortality are not the same as those underlying differences by race. In fact they seem to be opposite in nature. The difference in mortality between males and females is most probably due to a biological sex difference, while the higher mortality among nonwhites is most probably due to an adverse "environment. " This does not negate, however, the existence of a biological element in the race differences and and an environmental difference between the 2 sexes.