Elizabeth McLaren
Vital Statistics Outputs Branch
Telephone: +44 (0)1329 444110
Categories: Population, Deaths, Mortality Rates, Causes of Death, Health and Social Care, Child Mortality
Frequency of release: Annually
Language: English
Geographical coverage: England and Wales
Geographical breakdown: Country
Presents statistics on stillbirths, infant deaths and childhood deaths occurring annually in England and Wales. Also contains data on cause of death, sex and age-group plus analyses by some of the key risk factors affecting stillbirths and infant deaths including age of mother and birthweight.
For information on data quality, legislation and procedures relating to infant mortality statistics, please see Child Mortality Statistics Metadata (163.2 Kb Pdf) . A Quality and Methodology Information document (145.2 Kb Pdf) for Child mortality statistics is available on the ONS website.
The birth cohort tables for infant deaths provide specific data for deaths of infants born in a given calendar year using additional data from the birth record. Gestation specific mortality presents data on live births and infant deaths by gestational age, while Infant and perinatal mortality by social and biological factors provides statistics on infant and perinatal mortality by father's occupation, mother's country of birth, birthweight, mother's age. Unexplained deaths in infancy includes both sudden infant deaths and deaths for which the cause remained unknown or unascertained.
There are also rolling three-year aggregated infant mortality figures at local authority level.
The Vital Statistics: Population and Health Reference Tables provide quarterly and annual infant mortality data for the United Kingdom and its constituent countries (based on deaths registered in a year).
Summary data for infant mortality in England and Wales (based on deaths registered in the year) are available in the Deaths registrations summary tables.
A geographical breakdown of infant death numbers and rates by local authority and county level (based on deaths registered in the year) is available in Deaths registered in England and Wales by area of usual residence.
For data for other UK countries please see the latest infant death statistics for Northern Ireland and the latest infant death statistics for Scotland.
The Births summary tables, England and Wales provide key summary statistics for live births in England and Wales.
We welcome feedback on the content, format and relevance of this release. The Health and Life Events (HLED) User Engagement Strategy (95.1 Kb Pdf) outlines the divisional approach to user engagement.
The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics:
Once statistics have been designated as National Statistics it is a statutory requirement that the Code of Practice shall continue to be observed.