The Pediatrician's Role in Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sleep-Related Infant Deaths.

Abstract

* Abbreviation: PRAMS — : Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System The infant mortality rate in the United States ranks 33rd among countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,1 and there are persistent racial and ethnic disparities, with non-Hispanic black infants dying at a rate 2 to 3 times that of non-Hispanic white infants.2 In this issue of Pediatrics , Hirai et al3 provide insight into racial and ethnic differences in infant sleep practices that have important implications for racial and ethnic disparities for sleep-related infant deaths, including sudden infant death syndrome and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, which are the third leading cause of infant mortality in the United States. Hirai et al3 leveraged recently added questions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) to examine differences in sleep position, items in the sleep environment, bed-sharing, and room-sharing by race and ethnicity. Forty-seven states currently partner with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to administer the PRAMS survey to a randomly selected subpopulation of women in their state who have recently delivered. PRAMS previously only … Address correspondence to Rachel Y. Moon, MD, Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, PO Box 800386, Charlottesville, VA 22908. E-mail: rymoon{at}virginia.edu