Infant deaths in Kansas are above the national average. But what’s perhaps the most egregious is that the black infant death rate is three times that of whites. In this series, I wrote an overview piece on the topic, a piece that focused specifically on the issue of disparity in the black community and a piece that looked at rural v. urban rates, which found that while urban areas of the state have higher numbers of infant deaths, rural areas have greater rates. Rural areas also have greater rates of prenatal smoking and lack of access to prenatal care.
