And now:Sonja Keohane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
With the high crime rate and the high mortality rate...anyone have
data on the birth rate?
<http://www.billingsgazette.com/regionframe.htm>
Mortality rate high among Indian youth and getting worse
By PAYAL KAPADIA
Medill News Service
WASHINGTON - Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has
mentioned in several speeches her concern that male American Indians are
"the only racial and ethnic group for whom the death rate did not go down"
in the most recent statistics.
But doctors at the Indian Health Service say the real crisis is the
increase in mortality rates among Indian youth.
Shalala cited statistics from the National Center of Health Statistics
demonstrating that the adjusted death rates for Indian males went up from
489.8 per 100,000 in 1996 to 523.4 per 100,000 in 1997.
Officials at the Indian Health Service added that life expectancy among
Indian men was significantly lower than the national average, according to
the agency's last available statistics, from 1992 to 1994. At that time,
the national average was 72.2 years, while the life span of Indian men was
only 67.2 years.
But the reason that Indian males are lagging behind in life expectancy is
not so much because older Indians die sooner than older non-Indians,
according to IHS medical officers. Instead, the life expectancy rate is low
because of the startling increase in mortality rates among Indian youth.
----end of article----
