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Story Groundbreaking Infant Mortality Study 7-1
Chapter 3 Research & Data
Children’s Bureau "baby thermometer" chart showing infant mortality rates according to fathers’ earnings, circa 1923.
Photo Credit: Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-127253
Photo Credit: Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-127253
Groundbreaking Infant Mortality Study – The U.S. Government could once do little more than guess at the percentage of infants who survived their first year and the reasons why so many did not. One of the Children’s Bureau’s very first undertakings was a search for more definitive answers.
Eight American cities were selected to represent different conditions for families in different regions. Bureau staff, volunteers, and women’s clubs members painstakingly visited the homes of approximately 23,000 babies, documenting conditions and discovering critical factors that influenced the vastly differing infant death rates among various groups. The result? Between 1915 and 1921, infant mortality rates fell 24 percent.
Links:
- Results of a Field Study in Johnstown, PA, Based on Births in One Calendar Year (1915) PDF - 6,220 KB
- Causal Factors in Infant Mortality (1925) PDF - 23,540 KB
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