Black Babies Matter

Abstract

Despite dramatic advancements in neonatal intensive care since the 1960s, African-American infants still have more than a two-fold higher first-year mortality rate than non-Latinx White infants. Our essay examines the impact of upstream factors closely linked to the historical and contemporary context of structural racism in the United States on the African-American women's birth outcome disadvantage. In the process, we propose a paradigm to address the racial health inequity in adverse birth outcome by considering the interplay of racism and social class.

Keywords: African–American; Infant mortality; Preterm birth; Racial discrimination; Racial disparity; Social class.