Race and accidental infant deaths: Blacks and whites are identical, except for whites being racists and blacks suffering from it, right? Well, whites must also differ in being evil geniuses, because they have figured out some way to cause black babies to die accidentally at much higher rates than whites.
According to the CDC, non-automobile accidental death rates for infants are 39.8 per 100k for blacks and only 16.8 for whites. The difference is due to the following specific kinds of accidents: smothering, electrocution, being left in a hot car, contact with something hot, and consuming poisonous substances. These accidental deaths are obviously caused by factors like lack of supervision and judgment. Did white people suck common sense out of the heads of black folks?
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It's very unlikely that the "being left in a hot car" category would account for much if anything. There was a recent feature in the Washington Post about children who die in that manner, it created quite a stir in the blogosphere, but the relevant point is that about 15 to 25 children die each year from that cause. That doesn't sound anywhere near enough to have any effect on the statistics.
ReplyDeletePeter
Smothering, if accidental, is probably due to the greater frequency of co-sleeping in the black community, combined with the unfortunate much higher rates of obesity. That would almost certainly lead to a greater frequency of accidental smotherings.
ReplyDeleteContact with something hot, ouch! Perhaps more hot curlers or some such?
Lower intelligence = more accidents/stupid behavior = more deaths.
ReplyDeleteSmothering indeed is likely to be the cause of death that accounts for the racial differences in infant deaths. As I noted, no more than 25 children a year die from being left in hot cars, not enough to affect race-by-race comparisons. There are about 500 electrocution deaths a year in the country. I couldn't find what percentage of them might involve infants, but presumably it's very low; most electrocution deaths occur among construction or industrial workers, who of course are adults. Poisoning deaths in children run about 100 per year. Not all of these are infants, and in any case even the full 100 wouldn't be enough to create racial differences. As for "contact with something hot," I just can't imagine that accounts for many deaths at all. So, we're left with smothering.
ReplyDeletePeter