Costa Rica’s infant mortality rate continues to fall, and reached its lowest level ever in 2015, according to a recent announcement by the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC).

Infant mortality in the country last year was 7.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, the lowest level ever recorded, and down from 8.01 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014.

Infant mortality is defined as the death of a child less than one year of age.

According to INEC, infant mortality has fallen from 9.8 to 7.8 per 1,000 live births over the decade between 2005 and 2015.

Of the total, 76 percent of infant deaths were neonatal deaths (death within the first 28 days of life). The number of such deaths also dropped significantly between 2014 and 2015, from 6.2 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014 to just 4.3 in 2015.

 

Concern in Limon

While infant mortality dropped nearly across the board in Costa Rica last year, the Caribbean province of Limon was an exception: infant mortality there increased from 8.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014 to 10.6 deaths per 1,000 live births last year – well above the national rate.

The cause for the increase isn’t clear, but the province does suffer from higher rates of poverty and unemployment than many other areas of the country, as well as generally poorer infrastructure.

The infant mortality rate (IMR) is often used as a measurement of public health, medical infrastructure and access to medicine, sanitation and environmental conditions in a country or a region of a country.

Costa Rica for years has had one of the lowest infant mortality rates in Latin America, though still lags behind more developed countries: the infant mortality rate in the United States in 2015 was 5.87 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to US government estimates.