March 13, 2023
Inequities and SDOH | Tea Leaves
  • Despite a record-low infant mortality rate in 2020, a new study finds an unexpected jump in unexplained deaths in Black infants during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. The rate of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, increased by 15 percent in a single year, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in the medical journal Pediatrics. While the SID rate for White babies dropped to the lowest it has been since 2017, the rate for Black babies in 2020 was the highest it has been since then. Rates that were already about two times higher for Black babies in 2017 grew to nearly three times higher in 2020, the study found. (Articles here, here, and here)