British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 709

CHAPTER XVI.

Table 13.

CHILD MORTALITY RATES FOR PALESTINE MOSLEMS.
(deaths per 1000 survivors at the beginning of each year of life).
1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year first five
years
1927-29 18.5 111 111 56 sa 412
1930-32 162 92 98 38 20 353
1933-35 162 118 63 28 15 337
1936-38 147 91 50 21 12 287
1939-41 145 90 GI 28 15 290
1942-H 122 77 48 20 11 251 % decrease from 1D27-29 to

1942-44 34.1 30.6 56.8 64.8 66.7 39.0

It is clear from this table that mortality has been reduced by 34 per cent in the first year of age, by 31 per cent. in the second, by 57 per cent. in the third, by 64 per cent. in the fourth and by 67 per cent. in the fifth. That the reduction of mortality has been even higher during the second to fifth years than during the first year is not surprising, since child mortality? is more subject to environmental conditions and to avoidable causes than is infant mortality ". Whilst in 1027-29 the rates of mortality of children in Moslem Palestine were among the highest in the world and were close to those of the most backward countries in the world, today they are closer to these of fairly progressive countries. For instance out of a list of 32 countries for which data on mortality at age 0/5 are available, it is found that the following have a rate similar to or exceeding the present rate for the Moslems of Palestine (see table 14).

Table 14.

CHILD MORTALITY RATES (DURING THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF LIFE PER 1000) ***

Greece 1928 193
Hungary 1930/31 202
Poland 1931/32 203
Japan 1926/30 208
Palestine Moslems 1942/44 251
Bulgaria 1925/28 256
Union of South Africa- 1935/37 270
(coloured)
U.S.S.R. 1926/27 287
India 1931 385
______________
* Mortality in the second to fifth years of life.

** Mortality in the first year of life: unavoidable causes exert a considerable influence on the mortality in the first days of life.

*** The data relates to the number of deaths between birth and the end of the fifth year of life. The information is taken from the latest mortality tables available for each.

709