
Rochester is a beautiful city in upstate New York. It’s also a place with a startling and sad statistic. It has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country.
Infant mortality is when a baby dies before it reaches the age of one.
The U.S. infant mortality rate is about 6 per 1000 live births. So for every 1000 babies born, about 6 die before they turn one.
In Rochester, that rate is over 11 per 1000 live births.
But this doesn’t tell the whole story. To really understand, you have to break it down by race. Rochester’s black and Latino babies sometimes die at three or almost four times the rate of Rochester’s white babies.
Latino USA host and executive producer Maria Hinojosa visits Rochester to find out why this is happening. And to meet who is trying to change it.
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