Racial Differences in Infant Mortality by Cause: Florida, 1980-2000

Jessica C. Bishop, Florida State University
Isaac W. Eberstein, Florida State University

Given the previously established relationship between race and socioeconomic status and its implications for infant survival, this study ascertains whether improvements in infant survival that occurred during 1980-2000 in Florida are the result of changing mortality conditions or changing social conditions. Both macro-level and micro-level analyses will be used to determine how much of the changes in infant mortality that occurred during 1980-2000 are due to changing socioeconomic conditions. Indirect standardizations were performed for cause-specific mortality, which made it possible to elucidate how the composition of causes of death changed during the period, and to what extent these changes were due to changing maternal education. That the relationship between socioeconomic status and infant health varies less across causes of death in 1980 than in 2000 seems to indicate a weaker relationship between social status and health in 1980 than in 2000.