Wisconsin’s Black infant mortality crisis is harming generations
For generations, Black families in Wisconsin have buried babies at rates far higher than their white neighbors — a disparity that has withstood medical advances, public health initiatives and decades of promises to close the gap.
The numbers have remained stubbornly consistent, with Wisconsin regularly ranking the worst in the nation when it comes to the rate at which Black babies die before reaching age 1. In 2024, the most recent year for which the Wisconsin Department of Health Services has publicized data, the state had an infant mortality rate of 12.5 deaths for every 1,000 live births among Black babies. For white babies, that rate was 4.8.
Between 2015 and 2024 nearly 850 Black babies died in Wisconsin before turning 1, according to state data. Over the first half of that decade, nearly 25% of the deaths of Black infants were caused by being born into this world too early and too small to survive.
Researchers and health experts say the crisis cannot be explained by lack of access to quality healthcare alone. They point to the cumulative effects of systemic racism, chronic stress and generational trauma that shape maternal health long before pregnancy begins and influence birth outcomes from one generation to the next.
That these disparities transcend socioeconomic factors like income or level of educational attainment show the root cause lies elsewhere. Black babies are dying at higher rates even when their parents make a decent living. Black babies are dying at higher rates even when their moms are well-educated.
