New genius-grant winner Heidi Williams and colleagues write,
Effectively, either across countries or across regions within the US, we see that the observed geographic variation in postneontal mortality is heavily driven by variation in health gradients across socioeconomic groups. Notably, when we look at neonatal mortality we do not draw the same conclusions, suggesting that the inequalities we observe emerge especially strongly during the postneonatal period
Pointer from Joshua Gans. Read the paper before commenting. You will note that she deals with reporting differences.
I’m sure she’s very smart, but I’d bet the genius-worthy part was substituting code speak words like “inequality” for neutral sounding “disparity”, as in the quoted “suggesting that the inequalities we observe” …
I skimmed it and that is going to have to do. The main takeaways seem to be howlittle is known of the actual causes and that the timing is after the medical system has done it’s job. And what of the claim of an advantage the US has in neonatal care?
Interestingly Hispanic women have lower infant mortality that whites despite being poorer.
Further, infants born to U.S.-a><born Mexican American women exhibit rates of mortality that are statistically equal to those of non-Hispanic white women during the first weeks of life and fare considerably better than infants born to non-Hispanic black women, with whom they share similar socioeconomic profiles. These patterns are all consistent with the definition of the epidemiologic paradox as originally proposed by Markides and Coreil (1986).