Infant, childhood, and adolescent death rates are down, as are teen smoking, teen crime, and teen birth rates. Statistics in the Forum report show other trends regarding America's children. For example, preschool enrollment rates are up. Most children and adolescents have a diet that is poor or needs improvement. Infant, child, and adolescent mortality have declined, noted Edward Sondik, Ph.D, Director of the National Center for Health Statistics.
Fewer children die during infancy and the mortality rate for all children has continued to fall.
The infant mortality rate has dropped since 1983, from 10.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1997. Although the death rate for almost all groups of children has declined, the drop was greatest for black children from ages 1 to 4. From 1996 to 1997, the death rate for black children fell from 67.6 to 59.2 per 100,000. This rate, however, remained at almost twice the rate for whites, which was 31.6 in 1997. In 1996, the death rate for adolescents ages 15 to 19 was 78.6 deaths per 100,000.