Education, Prenatal Care, and Infant Mortality for Black, White, and Hispanic Mothers in the United States

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Infant and Child Health

Abstract

The overall rate of infant mortality in the United States has declined for all races in the past ten years, yet Black mothers are still more likely than White mothers to experience the death of an infant. Black mothers initiate and continue prenatal care at lower rates than their White counterparts, but there exists very little research examining how prenatal care usage varies by socioeconomic status within racial groups and how this variation affects racial disparities in infant mortality. Using the Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Public Use File from 2015 this paper examines the effect of maternal education and prenatal care on the relationship between maternal race and infant mortality. Results indicate that the probability of infant death decreases as maternal education and prenatal care increases, but the effect is not as strong for Black mothers as it is for White and Hispanic mothers. As a result, the black disadvantage in infant mortality is largest among mothers with college education who use prenatal care.

Authors

• Asiah Gayfield, University of Maryland

• Philip N. Cohen, University of Maryland