Editing Death rates in the 20th century (section)

==Improvements in public health==

During the 20th century, an enormous improvement in public health led to an overall decrease in death rates. Infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates have dramatically decreased. In the early 1900s, 6–9 women died in pregnancy-related complications for every 1,000 births, while 100 infants died before they were 1 year old. In 1999, at the end of the century, the infant mortality rate in the United States declined more than 90% to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. Similarly, maternal mortality rates declined almost 99% to less than 0.1 reported deaths per 1,000 live births.

There are a variety of causes for this steep decline in death rates in the 20th century:
* Environmental interventions
* Improvement in nutrition
* Advances in clinical medicine (sulfonamide in 1937, penicillin in the 1940s)
* Improved access to health care
* Improvements in surveillance and monitoring disease
* Increases in education levels
* Improvement in standards of living.

Despite these tremendous decreases in infant mortality and maternal mortality, the 20th century experienced significant disparities between minority death rates compared to death rates for white mothers. In the 1900s, black women were twice as likely to die while giving birth compared to white women. Towards the end of the 20th century, black women are three times as likely to die while giving birth. This disparity is often cited as a lack in stronger [[Health care in the United States]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC|title=Achievements in Public Health, 1900–1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies|url=https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm|access-date=13 November 2012}}</ref>