Trends in Cause-Specific Mortality by Race and Hispanic Origin, 1999–2019

Other Causes of Death

In 2019, the shares of all deaths that were caused by:

• musculoskeletal system diseases ranged from 0.47 percent for API people to 0.58 percent in the Black population;
• blood and blood-forming organ diseases ranged from 0.33 percent for the API population to 0.65 percent among Black individuals;
• conditions arising in the perinatal period ranged from 0.18 percent in the WNH population to 1.08 percent for Hispanic people;
• congenital anomalies ranged from 0.27 percent in the WNH community to 0.81 percent for Hispanic people;
• skin diseases ranged from 0.17 percent for API people to 0.24 percent for Black individuals;
• complications of childbirth ranged from 0.02 percent for WNH individuals to 0.11 percent in the Black community; and
• abnormal clinical findings not elsewhere classified ranged from 0.86 percent for API people to 1.33 percent in the Black community.

Notably, the United States has the highest maternal and infant mortality rates among comparable developed countries. Black mothers and their infants experience death rates several times higher than those of their peers in other RE groups. Age-adjusted mortality rates from complications of pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium increased over the 1999–2019 period. The maternal mortality rate in 2019 for Black women was 2.5 times the rate for WNH women and 3.5 times the rate for Hispanic women (Hoyert 2021). Similarly, deaths caused by conditions originating in the perinatal period (which include disorders related to the length of gestation and fetal growth; complications of pregnancy, labor, and delivery; and any other medical conditions related to the perinatal period) were substantially higher for Black infants. Another major cause of death shortly after birth is congenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomal abnormalities, for which mortality is significantly higher in the Black community than for any other RE group. The death rate for Black infants in 2018 was twice that of infants born to WNH mothers.