Although infant mortality rate varies by country, last year’s devastating statistics show that countries with the highest infant mortality rates are mainly from Africa, which is why we made a list of countries with the lowest infant mortality rates in the world in 2017 in order to raise awareness about the factors affecting infant’s health.
We are sure that many people are familiar with the fact that there are enormous differences in quality of living, including living standards, conditions, and possibilities between “first world countries” and the countries that sadly doesn’t fit in this category. Statistics claim that some of the top richest, healthiest, and most advanced countries in the world are, in fact, countries with the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. So, what is exactly the infant mortality rate? It’s the number of infant deaths (before the first birthday) out of every 1,000 live births in one year. Some of the factors affecting infant mortality are mother’s age, the order of birth, parents’ education, residence, and occupation, as well as various cultural and economic factors. However, probably the most important ones are poverty and the lack of availability of medicine. So, what do you think, do people in countries with low infant mortality rates even know how lucky they are each time when someone blows out the candles on the cake while celebrating baby’s first birthday? We are positive that they are, and their sincere wishes, hopes, and prayers (as ours) go to the countries with the highest infant mortality rates in the world.
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However, in some developed countries, such as the US, infant mortality rates are definitely high (for years). In 2014, about 23,000 infants died — that’s 6 for every 1,000 live births! The situation is especially alarming in the southeast states, and one of the possible reasons might be the fact that these are also the poorest states in the country. US infant mortality rate in 2015 and 2016 was the same — 5.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. In the following year, the situation didn’t differ much, and Mississippi, the state with highest infant mortality rate of 8,8 deaths per 1,000 live births is a sad proof.
On the other hand and the other side of the globe, we have countries like India which registered a decline in infant mortality rate by 8% in just one year. Although its average citizens are considered as quite poor, the country is definitely dealing with this issue. Nevertheless, the infant mortality rates in India are still high, since despite this improvement, in 2016, 43 infant deaths per 1000 live births were recorded.
So, to find out which countries have the lowest mortality rates in the world in 2017, we consulted infant mortality statistics from four different databases. We started with OECD’s report on infant mortality rates for the year 2015, Statista’s ranking of countries with the lowest infant mortality rate in 2017, United Nations’ report and CIA’s The World Factbook on the same subject. We only used the latest data available. Also, we came up with a scoring system – each time a country was between first and fifth in the rankings we gave it three points, each time a country was between the fifth and tenth place we gave it two points, and each time a country was between the tenth and fifteenth on the list we gave it one point. Once we got our results, we ranked countries accordingly.
Are you curious to which are the countries with the lowest infant mortality rates in the world in 2017, and why is that the case? We won’t keep you waiting any further.
15. Macau
This autonomous region on the south coast of China has the total population of approximately 648,550. With 3.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, this country definitely deserved a place on our list.
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