Major Public Health Issues in the U.S. and Developing Nations

Infant mortality rates in the U.S compared to Japan and Botswana
Student:
Professor:
Course title:
Date:
Infant mortality rates in the U.S compared to Japan and Botswana
The infant mortality rates – which is essentially the rate at which infants of less than 12 months old die – is a reflection of the social and economic conditions for the health of babies and mothers, and the efficacy of the country’s health systems. Infant mortality rate is seen as a sentinel indicator of child health as well as the society’s well-being over time. In addition, it indicates disparities in health between dissimilar populations, both between and within countries (MacDorman & Mathews, 2013). In this paper, the infant mortality rates for the United States are compared to the rates in one developed country, Japan, and one developing, Botswana.
1.0 Comparison of infant mortality rates
According to the Central Intelligence Agency (2015), the 2014 infant mortality rates in the United States, Japan and Botswana are 6.17, 2.13 and 9.38 respectively.
Table 1: Infant mortality rates of the U.S, Japan and Botswana (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015).
CountryInfant mortality rate Rank globally1United States6.17169 out of 224 countries2Japan2.13223 out of 224 countries3Botswana9.38145 out of 224 countries
At 2.13 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan ranks among the countries with the lowest infant mortality rates. Only Monaco, with infant mortality rate of 1.81, ranks better Japan. As illustrated in the table above, the U.S. ranks better than Botswana – a country with one of the lowest rates of infant mortality in the continent of Africa. Even so, an infant who is born in America is almost 3 times as likely to die in his/her first 12 months of life as an infant born in Japan. This is so notwithstanding the fact that the levels of healthcare spending in America are considerably higher than in Japan or any other nation globally (Lu & Johnson, 2014).
A key contributing factor to the disparity between infant mortality rates in America and regions that rank better than US such as Japan and Europe is the comparatively high rate of death amongst infants born at full term in America, compared with that of Japan or Europe. Researchers have reported that higher infant mortality rates in America in comparison to other developed countries are to a large extent because of high infant mortality amongst groups that are less disadvantaged. In other words, infants who are born to financially poor mothers in America are considerably more probable to die within their initial 12 months of life than those born to mothers who are wealthier (Gage et al., 2013).
Even as the deaths of newborns in the United States are more likely to be associated with health problems, older babies are more susceptible to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) as well as accidents. In general, if the high rate of infant mortality in America owes for the most part to what occurs to slightly older infants, then providing more advanced medical care at birth may not really remedy the problem (MacDorman & Mathews, 2013). The rates of infant mortality in America amongst affluent Americans are the same as the rates a...