North Carolina's infant death rate continues its steady decline, and Alleghany County's rate is even lower than the state overall. According to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics, the state had 1,034 infant deaths in 2000, for a rate of 8.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. The rate for 1999 was 9.1 (with the same number of deaths, 1,034).
With only one infant death in 2000 versus 126 live births, Alleghany's rate was 7.9. Zero infant deaths were listed in the county for 1999. Statewide the rate has decreased from 24.1 in 1970, 14.4 in 1980, and 10.6 in 1990.
Ashe County went from three infant deaths in 1999, for a rate of 10.3, to zero last year. Surry County had eight deaths in 1999, an 8.6 rate, and seven in 2000, a 7.2 rate. Wilkes County decreased from 11 deaths in 1999, or a 12.8 rate, to two in 2000, or a 2.2 rate.
The release from N.C. SCHS includes an advisory that rates based on less than 10 deaths are unstable and should be interpreted with caution.
Danny Staley, director of the Appalachian District Health Department, echoed that caution, saying that for a county the size of Alleghany such statistics can be misleading. "It takes a larger population pool — Wilkes has about enough — to come close to true numbers and trends," he said.
Statistics are especially subject to manipulation with small populations. "As my statistics professor said, ‘Figures don't lie, but liars can figure,'" Staley recalled.
"At the minimum you have to do a five-year comparison."
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