High infant mortality rates not from personal choices, OSU experts tell Youngstown crowd

YOUNGSTOWN

That systems and institutions affect peoples lives more than individual choices, especially as it applies to infant mortality, was a major takeaway from the Youngstown Minority Health Month Conference.

The conference, “Why are Our Babies Dying,” sponsored by the Youngstown Office of Minority Health, was Thursday at Tabernacle Baptist Church on Arlington Avenue.

Main speakers were legal analysts, Attys. Charles W. Noble II and Kwame O. Christian, both affiliated with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University.

To improve the infant-mortality rate, the percentage of babies who don’t live until their first birthdays, it is necessary to change the socioeconomic systems that originally created segregation and led to areas with poor educational opportunities and high crime rates. Those are the areas that also produce high infant-mortality rates, they said.

Noble said the high infant-mortality rates in Mahoning County and Ohio are not the result of individual failures.

“A kid who is 13 or 14 or a mother who is 18 or 19 can only do so much individually about their situations,” Noble said.

Read what they suggest as low-cost solutions and more about the event in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.