Focus is on black infant mortality
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
“Why are Our Babies Dying? A Focus on Infant Mortality” will be the main topic of Thursday’s local Minority Health Month Conference at Tabernacle Baptist Church at 707 Tabernacle Blvd.
Main speakers for the event, sponsored by the Youngstown Office of Minority Health, are legal analysts Atty. Charles W. Noble II, who will present “If Lions Could Speak: An introduction to Racial Apologetics”; and Atty. Kwame O. Christian, affiliated with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University.
Also, Stacy Scott, president and chief executive officer of In Black Print Inc., and program manager for the SID Network of Ohio, will provide an overview of The SID Network of Ohio’s series of community health forums conducted throughout the state in conjunction with several partners in areas where the disparity of infant mortality among blacks is the highest.
Other speakers and their topics are: Lashale Pugh, assistant professor, Youngstown State University, Mahoning Valley Infant Mortality statistics; Dr. Elena Rossi, associate chairwoman of pediatrics for Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley and director of general pediatrics at St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital, “Progesterone Project and Birth Spacing;” Mercy Health, centering pregnancy and its Resource Mother’s program; and Guy Burney, director of the Youngstown Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.
The conference begins at 8:30 a.m. with registration and a continental breakfast, which are free and open to the public, followed by welcoming comments by Leigh Greene-Colvin, director of the Youngstown Office of Minority Health; Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, president of the Youngstown District Board of Health; Nate Pinkard, Youngstown 3rd Ward councilman; and Erin Bishop, Youngstown health commissioner. The Rev. Lewis Macklin, president pro tem of the city health board, will offer the invocation.
The Youngstown Office of Minority Health has applied to the following boards for approval of continuing education units (CEU) for nurses, dietetics, counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists, dietitians/dietetic technicians.