Unexplained Death in Infancy by deprivation and ethnicity

JPEG file: supplementary graph derived from the same large dataset as the analysis reported in the cited journal article. TXT file: data for this graph, and reference for the journal article. This graph relates to a journal article that can be viewed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2018-21045 (see Related Items). We report a nearly five-fold disparity in risk of Unexplained Death in Infancy (UDI) across ethnic groups in England and Wales, and demonstrate that this disparity is not explained by deprivation. Formal adjustment for deprivation (IMD quintiles) does not even slightly reduce the ethnic variation (see Table 2 of the cited paper). A simple scatter plot of ethnic groups illustrates the lack of a relationship between deprivation and risk, with a virtually horizontal overall trend line (as shown in this Dataset). For example, Black Caribbean babies have nearly triple the UDI risk of Black African babies, but similar levels of deprivation. The Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups each have around half the risk of White British babies; the White British and Indian groups have similar (relatively low) levels of deprivation, and the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups are the most deprived in England and Wales. In the cited paper we discuss various potential mediators of the ethnic differences, including sleep practices, breastfeeding and tobacco use, based on the ethnic-specific prevalence of these factors in prior survey data. We suggest that careful comparison of ethnic patterns of exposure and outcome might lead to a better understanding of the aetiology of these very distressing deaths