African-Americans Infant Mortality

This article discusses the reasons for infant mortality among African-Americans, including poverty, low socioeconomic status, prenatal care, and physical health. It also explores how social injustice is experienced by African-Americans and Rawls mature theory of social justice. Finally, it provides a proposal on a macro-level intervention recommendation to mortality among African-Americans.

Running Head: AFRICAN-AMERICANS INFANT MORTALITY 1
African-Americans Infant Mortality
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Infant Death Among African-Americans
Infant mortality refers to the demise of the newborn before coming to see the first
birthday. Accordingly, the newborn death rate is the number of infant losses for every 1000
living deliveries. On the other hand, the vulnerable population is those individuals that are at a
disadvantage in the society such as diverse racial minorities (Hummer, Powers, Pullum,
Gossman & Frisbie, 2012). Majority of the minorities usually suffer from poverty, poor lifestyle,
living conditions, food among other factors. In that case, infant mortality is right linked to these
reasons since the newborns are usually susceptible to their living environments and most of the
newborns in poor families are at higher danger of SIDS than those in a staple class family
(Schoendorf, Hogue, Kleinman & Rowley, 2015).
The vulnerable population that I chose to discuss on is African Americans, and the health
problem of my interest was Infant mortality. The black population is the largest of the numerous
ethnic and racial groups that are found within the United States who are mostly of African origin,
however, there are other black individuals who do not have black ancestors. They are the
descendants of slaves who were forced to work in America and hade limited rights. Most of the
blacks live in the city of New York while others in Chicago and Detroit (Schoendorf et al.
2015). In this article, I will discuss many issues that revolve around infant mortality among
African-Americans. These include; Reasons for newborn death amongst African-Americans such
as Poverty, low socioeconomic status, prenatal care and physical health, how social injustice is
experienced by African-Americans, Rawls mature theory of social justice. Finally, I will provide
my proposal on a macro-level intervention recommendation to mortality among African-
Americans as justified by literature review.
Reasons for Infant Mortality Among African-Americans

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Infant motility in America is due to the racial division which usually begins during birth
due to many disparities in the healthcare sector. Blacks have very high infant mortality rates as
compared to other ethnic or racial groups in America (Chay & Greenstone, 2013). The gap
continues to widen, for instance, African-Americans had the highest infant death rates in the
United States of America during the 2002-2004 period. These statistics show that almost
fourteen black infants died for every one thousand births. The African Americans are vulnerable
to Infant mortality because of so many factors. These factors include; shortage of resources and
low social and economic levels, prenatal attention and physical well-being among the blacks
(Schoendorf et al. 2015).
Other minor reasons for infant mortality among the African-American population are
mother’s age, poor nutrition, and birthweight related issues (McCormick, 2015). These factors
will significantly affect the future economic as well as social paths of the newborns which lead to
increased infant mortality among the African-Americans population. There are many
improvements that have been made in the effort to reduce infant mortality among this population
but colored children are almost three folds more probable to pass away early before their first
anniversary than white babies. This problem is escalating due to the above factors which lead to
increased infant mortality among the African-Americans population (Schoendorf et al. 2015).
Poverty And Low Socioeconomic Status Among African-Americans
Majority of black women are usually at a greater danger for parental and newborn death
that is after controlling for education and socioeconomic (Schoendorf et al. 2015). Furthermore,
regulatory influences displayed that the college-educated black females of African descent were
three times more probable to lose their newborns as compared to the non-Hispanic white peers
(Coutinho, David & Collins, 2016).

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Prenatal Care Among African-Americans
The initial and adequate prenatal care is usually aimed at promoting viable gravidities
and hence decrease the mother and toddler death via the maternal health screening, parental
instruction and consequently therapy on the proper activities (Hart, Kunitz, Sell & Mukamel,
2014). The African American women have a very lower percentage of access to prenatal health
care as associated to non-Hispanic white women, and therefore there is a lot of racial disparities
in maternal and infant mortality (Schoendorf et al. 2015).
Considering the prenatal upkeep, this may be a result of divergent eminence since
research show that the African America women are always given lower quality prenatal care, and
hence they still experience more complications (Hart et al. 2014). Moreover, the health status,
stress, health history along with discrimination might contribute to parental and toddler
transience (Schoendorf et al. 2015).
Physical Health Among African-Americans
The other factor why the African American population is vulnerable to infant mortality is
physical health. Smoking and substance misuse are the hazard factors which powerfully foresee
preterm births, low birth weight and also infant death syndrome (Schoendorf et al. 2015).
Moreover, Obesity that is greatly linked with many pregnancy problems generally forecasts
toddler transience and this problem is more rampant among the African American women
population (Hart et al. 2014).
How Social Injustice Is Experienced By African-Americans
The African-American population is always denied fairness in healthcare, in education
and even politically. According to the American Tally Department (2015), in the year 2013

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fourty five million African-Americans inhabited the United States (Hart et al. 2014). After being
driven away from their normal daily exists and households which they owned in Africa and
transported to Americas it has been a extraordinary fight to end separation, domination,
discernment, and segregation so as to attain the final goal of fairness (Hummer et al. 2012).
African Americans have been a great force on the partisan, community, social, mythical
and monetary environments in America that we know today. These events are highly valuable in
the history of the USA which include the problems encountered and the improvement that has
been made by African Americans from separation to the swearing in of the first African
American head of State.
Rawls Mature Theory Of Social Justice To Control How Past, SES, Healthiness Blocks,
And Other Elements Of Health Have Molded The Health Result For African-Americans
The theory of social justice that I selected is Rawls matured model of social justice
(Clark, Anderson, Clark & Williams, 2013). This model needs us to perceive the social order as a
just arrangement of collaboration over time from peer-group to the next. However, the partisan
origin of fairness points to a concept of sensible citizens. That is, people are intellectual when
they view one another equal in the system of collaboration over age group (Hart et al. 2014).
According to Rawl, every individual has the same right to the most widespread total organization
of important freedoms which are well-suited with a analogous technique of freedom for
everyone. Some of the determinants of health that has shaped infant mortality among African
Americans to be higher are unemployment, stress, social exclusion, food and early life (David &
Collins, 2017). As an illustration, if a person is struggling to survive financially, has no job, lives
in a poor house then changing the individual behaviors such as smoking may be a low priority
and hence becomes vulnerable to infant mortality (Hart et al. 2014).

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How AIDS As A Macrostructure Affects Infant Mortality Among African-Americans
One of the social structure which affects infant mortality is AID. Aid usually contributes
to reducing the inter-group or the level disparities in a situation where such variances show great.
Conversely, aid usually reduces the toddler transience in less fortunate groups like children
living in rural and the Muslim dominated regions (Clark et al. 2013).
My Proposal On A Macro-Level Intervention Recommendation To Mortality Among
African-Americans As Justified By Literature Review
There are many changes that need to be made in our health systems and programs to
reduce infant mortality among the African-Americans. To reduce this health problem, I would
recommend that public awareness has to be increased about the matter of inequalities in preterm
and newborn mortality along with the public’s role in addressing the problem. This is because
there is no way of preventing preterm birth so far which is the most cause of infant mortality
(Clark et al. 2013). Furthermore, I would say that pregnant women should be given sufficient
folic acid before and throughout pregnancy to avoid neural tube flaws. Additionally, a safe infant
sleep environment should also be provided (Hummer et al. 2012).
Finally, I propose that the federal government introduces a healthy people initiative
which would target the many preventable threats to health so as to reduce infant mortality among
the African-American population. This initiative will greatly reduce health disparities that exist
across cultural and ethnic collections in America. To eliminate these ethnic and racial disparities
will be facilitated by this initiative since it will address the needed significant changes that
include; reducing the barriers which prevent the African-Americans as well as other
disadvantaged populations from getting access to economic and social opportunities as well as

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good health care services. This initiative is important since the lack of access to proper health
care services among the African-American population puts the infants at a great risk and
disadvantage in surviving even the first birthday which denies the black society their social as
well as economic contributions (Luke & Keith, 2013). Therefore, the policymakers should invest
heavily in the health sector especially towards the less privileged populations especially the
African-Americans so as to reduce the infant mortality cases among this population.

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