According to Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, an assemblymember in Brooklyn, there is an infant mortality crisis in New York City that affects the Black population in particular.
An infant, as opposed to a neonate or a postneonate, is defined as a baby more than 28 days and less than one year old.
And three times as many Black infants died than white infants in New York City in 2020, the last year data was available, according to NYC Open Data.
Benjamin Sosnaud, a professor at Trinity University, said that the causes for this continued racial disparity are structural.
“Part of the problem is that a lot of the factors that are producing the inequalities are fairly entrenched,” he said in an interview, “and unfortunately a lot of the benefits we’re achieving are not necessarily being distributed to everybody.”
The factors Sosnaud pointed to, which has negative consequences even before birth, include exposure to hazardous pollutants, access to unprocessed food, poverty and chronic stress, including the chronic stress of racial inequality.