It is difficult for me to know on several topics weather or not they are actual social problems. It seems that the term ‘social problem’ is too broad to actually have any meaning or importance. The sociological definition of a social problem is a phenomenon which a significant amount of people believe is bad or undesirable (Heiner, 4). How many people do there need to be to count as a significant number of people? Does this definition work for every society and every social circle?

The United States has “the highest infant mortality rate of the 19 countries in OECD”(Eitzen, 5), is this a bad thing? To most people, it would be extremely heartbreaking to loose a newborn child. After going through the pains of pregnancy while gaining hopes, inspirations, and expectations, of creating a new human being, it would be devastating to loose it all when the infant doesn’t make it. On the other hand, natural selection doesn’t play as much of a role as it did before medical care has become as advanced as it is currently around the world. Perhaps a high infant mortality rate is a positive factor aiding in evolution of human genes, making the general population of the United States more healthy and better fit for the environment than it otherwise would be.