CRN 40128 Grambling State University Infant Mortality Rate Exercise
Chapter 9 assignment I: Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy:
1) Online, go to the CIA World Factbook.
2) Look on the right hand side a couple of inches down for “Select a Country or Location.”
3) Select the United States. When the appropriate screen appears, scroll down and click on “People and Society.”
4) Scroll down until you find the infant mortality rate for the United States. Write this number down. You only need to write down the figure given for “Total.”
5) Find the infant mortality rate for Cuba (“Total”) and write it down.
6) Find the infant mortality rate for eight additional countries and write down the information. Four of the eight countries should be fully developed nations (Most Industrialized Nations), while the other four should be developing nations (Industrializing Nations and Least Industrialized Nations.) If you do not know which countries fall into which category, consult pages 236-237 of your text.
7) Arrange the information in columns, with the country having the lowest infant mortality rate listed on top (#1) and the country with the highest infant mortality rate on the bottom (#10). The first column should have the country name. The second column should have the country’s infant mortality rate.
8) Write a paragraph in which you summarize your findings. How does the United States compare to other nations? Offer a sociological explanation as to why this might be the case.
Now do the same with regard to life expectancy. You are going to submit two charts: one with IMR data, the other with life expectancy data. In addition, you are to submit two summary paragraphs: one on IMR, the other on life expectancy. This is where you talk about how the United States compares to other nations on these two ‘quality of life’ measures, offering a sociological explanation as to why this might be the case.
