title: The unique impact of abolition of Jim Crow laws on reducing inequities in infant death rates and implications for choice of comparison groups in analyzing societal determinants of health.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We explored associations between the abolition of Jim Crow laws (i.e., state laws legalizing racial discrimination overturned by the 1964 US Civil Rights Act) and birth cohort trends in infant death rates.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed 1959 to 2006 US Black and White infant death rates within and across sets of states (polities) with and without Jim Crow laws.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Between 1965 and 1969, a unique convergence of Black infant death rates occurred across polities; in 1960 to 1964, the Black infant death rate was 1.19 times higher (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.18, 1.20) in the Jim Crow polity than in the non-Jim Crow polity, whereas in 1970 to 1974 the rate ratio shrank to and remained at approximately 1 (with the 95% CI including 1) until 2000, when it rose to 1.10 (95% CI = 1.08, 1.12). No such convergence occurred for Black-White differences in infant death rates or for White infants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that abolition of Jim Crow laws affected US Black infant death rates and that valid analysis of societal determinants of health requires appropriate comparison groups.
authors.affiliation: Nancy Krieger, Jarvis T. Chen, and Pamela D. Waterman are with the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Brent Coull is with the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health. Jason Beckfield is with the Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Krieger
authors.forename: Jarvis T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Brent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Coull
authors.forename: Pamela D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Waterman
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Beckfield
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D019352:Censuses; D002961:Civil Rights / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D063505:Racism / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D035521:Supreme Court Decisions; D014481:United States; D044465:White People