“Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe”

In 2005, the latest year that the international ranking is available for, the United States ranked 30th in the world in infant mortality, behind most European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Israel.

The report, produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compares infant mortality rates between the United States and Europe, with special attention to two factors that determine the infant mortality rate: gestational age-specific infant mortality rates and the rate of preterm births. It argues that the high infant mortality rate in the United States is due to the high percentage of preterm births, which has risen 36 percent since 1984.

Read the report.