title: Trends and patterns of postneonatal mortality in Alaska 1977 through 1984.
abstract: Several determinants of Alaska postneonatal mortality rate were examined to determine whether very low birth weight (less than 1500 g) and low birth weight (1500-2499 g) surviving neonates contributed to the lack of improvement in postneonatal mortality rate. For an eight year period (1977 through 1984), all infant deaths (n = 1020) of the 82,301 resident births were reviewed through vital statistics data. The infant's place of birth, ethnic group, birth weight and age at death were available. Ethnic and rural-specific postneonatal mortality rate (PNMR) significantly improved, but there was no change in birth weight distribution or birth weight-specific postneonatal mortality rate. However, surviving very low birth weight infant proportion of postneonatal mortality has increased from 5% to 8.2% and low birth weight proportion has remained unchanged (15.6%). These proportions were not offset by the decline in normal birth weight (greater than 2500 g) postneonatal mortality rate. This trend suggests that infants born weighing less than 2500 g have slowed the decline of the postneonatal mortality rate.
authors.affiliation: Alaska Neonatology Associates, Anchorage 99508.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Harrison
mesh_terms: D000413:Alaska / Q000453:epidemiology; D001724:Birth Weight; D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population; D014505:Urban Population