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Health Indicator Report of Infant Mortality

The infant mortality rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health and is a commonly-used measure of public health for countries around the world. While the infant mortality rate has been declining in the U.S., in New Mexico the trend has remained fairly level.

Data Sources

  • New Mexico Death Data: Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), New Mexico Department of Health.
  • Birth Certificate Data, Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), New Mexico Department of Health.

Data Interpretation Issues

The Infant Mortality Rate is most often calculated as infant deaths in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year (death period method). The rate may also be calculated as death of infants born in a given year per 1,000 infants born in that year (birth cohort method).

Definition

Infant mortality rates are calculated as the number of resident infant deaths occurring in a given infant age group in a given year per 1,000 resident live births in the same year.

Numerator

For infant mortality: number of deaths of resident infant younger than 1 year of age in a given year. For neonatal mortality: number of deaths of resident infant younger than 28 days of age in a given year. For perinatal mortality: number fetal deaths of at least 28 weeks gestation, plus the number of infant deaths less than 7 days old in a given year. For post-neonatal mortality: number of deaths of resident infants from 28 days of age to less than 1 year in a given year.

Denominator

Total number of resident live births in the same year. For perinatal mortality, the denominator is the total number of resident live births plus fetal deaths of at least 28 weeks gestation.

Healthy People Objective: MICH-1.3, All infant deaths (within 1 year)

U.S. Target: 6.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births

Other Objectives

CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking, Nationally Consistent Data and Measures (EPHT NCDM)

How Are We Doing?

Overall, congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause of infant death (20.1% of deaths). Disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight are second, making up 16.6% of deaths. However, it is important to keep in mind that cause of death varies over the first year of life, and combining all causes during the first year of life obscures the importance of sudden infant death syndrome as the leading cause of death in the postneonatal period.
Page Content Updated On 02/12/2018, Published on 02/12/2018
Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau, Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health, 1190 S. Saint Francis Drive, Suite 1320, Santa Fe, NM 87505, Heidi Krapfl, Chief, (505) 476-3577, heidi.krapfl@state.nm.us, or Brian Woods, Environmental Epidemiologist, (505) 827-2868, brian.woods@state.nm.us
The information provided above is from the New Mexico Department of Health's NM-IBIS web site (http://ibis.health.state.nm.us). The information published on this website may be reproduced without permission. Please use the following citation: "Retrieved Fri, 18 January 2019 from New Mexico Department of Health, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health Web site: http://ibis.health.state.nm.us".

Content updated: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 13:01:49 MST