BCPB Home > Benchmarks > Rankings > Performance Indicator 23: Low Birth Weight Rate

Performance Indicator 23: Low Birth Weight Rate

Where BC Ranks, Provincial Comparison

  
Year

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Rank

2

1

5

2

5

3

5

3

3

7

Performance Indicator Twenty-Three Low Birth Weight Rate is based on the number of infants born weighing less than 2,500 grams. The lowest ratio earns the best rank.

In 2007, BC's ratio of 5.8 earned a seventh place rank whereas its 2006 ratio of 5.6 earned third place. A small increase coupled with decreases in several provinces explains BC's poor showing this year. One relatively poor rank does not indicate a problem.

BC has bettered the Canadian average every year since 1990 and has held either first, second or third place over the period 1990 through 2007 in all but four years.

North American Comparison

In 2007, British Columbia ranked eighth among the 61 sub-national jurisdictions for births weighing fewer than 2,500 grams relative to total live births.

Eight of the Canadian provinces ranked in the top ten in the North American comparison with New Brunswick in first place and Alberta in 19th place.

Louisiana, the District of Columbia and Mississippi have held the bottom three positions for the last five years, although not always in the same position every year.

International Comparison

British Columbia has consistently performed well on the low birth weight rate in relation to OECD countries. Iceland ranked first with a low birth weight rate of 3.8. Greece, Japan and Turkey had the highest rates and earned the worst three ranks.

In terms of average birth weight rate between 1998 and 2007, BC ranked tenth and Canada ranked 12th with 5.4 and 5.8 percent of live births, respectively.

Worldwide, 15.5 percent of all infants are born with low birth weight and 95 percent of these are in developing countries. At 16.5 percent, the level of low weight births in developing countries is more than double the 7.0 percent rate for developed countries. The highest incidence of low weight births is in South-Central Asia, where 27.0 percent of infants have low birth weight.

Why It's Important
There are a number of negative outcomes for those experiencing low incomes. People with low income may experience more physical and mental health problems, rely more on charity, attain lower levels of education, or have higher secondary school drop out rates. Factors that contribute to low birth weight are socio-economic status, social support, stress and personal habits.
Note
Canada's rate as reported by Statistics Canada differs slightly from that reported by the OECD. Statistics Canada's values are used in the above analysis; this change did not affect Canada's rate or rank.













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