BMJ  2003;327:1169 (15 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7424.1169-a

Letter

Sex difference in infant mortality in India is reflected in England and Wales

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Sex differences in infant mortality have been the subject of previous international comparison and discussion, and the results presented by Khanna et al provide confirmation.1 2 I examined whether similar sex differences exist in England and Wales.

I used unpublished data on births and infant deaths by mother's country of birth from the Office for National Statistics. In the absence of national data by ethnic origin, the data for children born to first generation migrants provide the closest proxy to outcomes for minority populations in England and Wales.

For the 19 663 births registered between 1996 and 1998 to mothers born in India, infant mortality for both sexes was 5.49 per 1000 births, an odds ratio of 1.00, which is not significantly different from the overall England and Wales ratio of 0.80 (table).


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  		Odds ratios (95% CI) of female to male birth ratio by mother's country of . . . [Full text of this article]

 

Ian Dawson, independent researcher

Birchington, Kent CT7 9HX tismollett@aol.com


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Community based retrospective study of sex in infant mortality in India
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