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Show Depression Hasn't Affected Baby Death Rate The depression has so far failed to register on the baby death rate i of the country according to the American Child Health Association which has completed its annual report on infant mortality in cities over 10,000 population for 1931. The rate dropped from 62.2 in 1930 to HI .2 in 1931, this being the lowest rate ever recorded. The rate for 1931 is representative of 880 cities in the Birth Registration Registra-tion Area and is based on reports received from state and local officials of-ficials of 967,437 live births and 59.185 deaths among children under un-der one year of age. Among the largest cities, those over 250,000 population, Portland, Oregon, reported the lowest rate! the figure being 36 deaths under one year of age per live births. San Francisco and Oakland stood next, each with a rate of 42. Cleveland's rate was 54, New York! Chicago and Detroit, each 56 and Los Angeles 59, St. Louis and Philadelphia, each 64, Pittsburgh 70 and Baltimore 72. In the population group 100.000 to 250,000, Long Beach, California was low with a rate of 31. Tulsa Oklahoma, was second with 40 and Grand Rapids, Michigan third with 43. Glendale, California, led the cities of 50.000 to 100,000 population popula-tion with a rate of 19 followed by Medford, Massachusetts, with 27 and Berkeley, California 28. Rates of zero are registered by several smaller cities including University Heights, Missouri, Shorewood, Wisconsin and Bur-lingame, Bur-lingame, California. The rates of some individual cities do not give a true picture of the situation according to the Report, Re-port, because of the almost universal uni-versal practice of crediting births and deaths to the place of occurence occur-ence instead of to the place of residence. Cities without hospitals show far less records of births and deaths than cities with hospi-fals. hospi-fals. In the mass, however, the data gives a very good picture of the actual situation, according to the Report. When the data for the cities are erouped by states, they show that Oregon cities led with a rate of 41. Vermont cities were second with 48, California cities , third with 49, and Montana and Oklahoma Okla-homa cities fourth with rates of 50. Comparisons of the urban rates in 38 states for the last two vears show that the rates fell in 24, remained the same in two and increased in 12. . The most pronounced pro-nounced drops were in Oklahoma, 26 and Vermont, 24. The greatest rise was in Arkansas, the urban 'ate being 59 in 1930 and 80 In 1931 "There Is no evidence in these urban figures by states of an adverse ad-verse effect on infant mortality during the last year" states the Report. "The corresponding urban rates as presented in our annual reports from 1925 to 1931 inclusive, have been as follows: 73, 74, 65, 68. 66, 62, 61." The Association's Report is based on preliminary figures received re-ceived liom localities. Some changes chan-ges in individual rates are anticipated antici-pated when the final official figures fig-ures are published by the Census Bureau. |
