Infant deaths a reflection of racial divide in the US

Nowhere is the linger- ing racial divide in our nation, state and community more visible and more dismaying than in rates of infant deaths. Recently released data from the Ohio Department of Health show that black children are nearly three times as likely as white children to die before their first birthday.

That gap, alarmingly apparent in a Page 1 chart published in The Vindicator last week, must be closed. State and local leaders in health, community service and religion should lead the charge.

One, however, can find a few rays of hope emanating from the latest IMR data that track infant deaths for 2014 and for the decade from 2005 to 2014 in each county of the state. For example, of the 58,967 babies born in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties over the past decade, 459 died at birth or before turning 1 year old. A year-by-year analysis of those numbers indicates a slight downward trend in infant deaths through the years. In Mahoning County, 22 infants died in 2013, compared with 15 in 2014, a decline of more than 25 percent.

Unfortunately, however, that optimistic decline has not filtered into the black community. In fact, the black infant mortality rate in Ohio actually increased between 2013 and 2014 from 13.8 percent to 14.3 percent.

TOOLS TO FIGHT CRISIS

In response, the state of Ohio over the past year has begun to regard the dilemma with the urgency it demands. The Ohio General Assembly last year created the Infant Mortality Commission, led by state Sen. Shannon Jones and state Rep. Stephanie Kunze. It is preparing a report and recommendations on improving the quality of information about infant mortality, on removing barriers to birth control and on addressing the role of social factors such as poverty and teen motherhood on poor infant health. When its recommendations are released by this spring, we hope for a comprehensive prescription that fairly addresses the problem statewide, particularly in communities such as Mahoning and Trumbull counties, where the IMR still ranks distressingly high. We recall only too well that the Valley was left out of a $900,000 program last summer to fund community health initiatives aimed at reducing infant deaths.

On the local level, the Mahoning Valley recently has gotten on board with such initiatives, one of the most promising of which is a “centering pregnancy program” at which pregnant women meet in groups for health assessments, education and support. We commend Mercy Health for developing these promising programs at its hospitals in Youngstown, Warren and Boardman.

Elsewhere, Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley has initiated through private grant funding a promising program aimed at reducing the number of sleep-related infant deaths, a prime contributor to our region’s high infant mortality rate.

On the national level, the U.S. Congress recently awakened from its lethargy and passed, after six long years of irresponsible inaction, legislation to better track and monitor infant deaths throughout the nation.

Of course, progressive new laws and public-spirited initiatives can go only so far toward lowering our state’s abysmally high infant-death rates. A variety of factors plays a role in mothering healthy babies. Among them are individual initiative and heightened responsibility among mothers and fathers. They include ensuring all pregnant women are educated on avoiding risky health behaviors such as drinking and smoking and on the necessity to get medical attention early and often.

In addressing the crisis of infant mortality in the black community, educating young women and mothers is critically important. As respected institutions among many African-American families, the black church can play a large and effective role toward encouraging responsible pregnancy and post-pregnancy behaviors.

Such efforts, in concert with others, can go far toward narrowing the abhorrent racial divide in infant mortality rates. They also can work to reduce the rate of such deaths for all population groups. In so doing, Ohio will be able to erase its claim to shame that besmirches the image of the state and the quality of life within it, particularly for its youngest and most vulnerable population.