1 School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Infant mortality declined again in 1968, for the third successive year, and there is some evidence of a more rapidly downward trend in the unacceptably higher infant death rates which have existed among some population groups. The birth rate also declined again, but the marriage rate showed rather a sharp rise ( Table I ). With an excess of births over deaths of 1.55 million persons, the rate of natural increase was 7.8 per 1,000 population.
Births Once more there was a decline in annual number of births, although a smaller one than last year. Nevertheless, with a rising population the birth rate fell to 17.4, the lowest ever recorded in the United States.