Kudos to the Dept. of Health Services (DHS) for reminding me and others that that September is Infant Mortality Awareness Month.  A DHS press release issued Monday highlights some of the Wisconsin trends and the racial disparities in infant mortality rates:

• Over the past two decades, overall infant mortality rate in Wisconsin declined from 8.0 to 6.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, based on three-year averages, but the gains did not fully extend to minority groups.
• During the 2008-2010 period, African American infants were 2.7 times as likely to die before reaching their first birthday as an infant born to a white woman.
• In 2010, 393 Wisconsin infants died during the first year of life: 247 were white, 95 were African American, 29 were Hispanic/Latino, six were American Indian, and eight were Laotian and Hmong.

The State Health Officer, Dr. Henry Anderson, enumerated many of the programs that health officials are involved in to reduce infant mortality.  Some of these include:

• Promoting breastfeeding as the best source of nutrition for babies;
• Encouraging women to quit smoking through programs like the Strive to Quit initiative for eligible individuals enrolled in Medicaid;
• Working with HMOs in southeast WI to promote and support medical homes for high-risk pregnant women to ensure a more comprehensive approach to care, including care coordination and home visits;
• Partnering with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families (LIHF), a $10 million multi-year effort to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes; and
• Collaborating with the Dept. of Children and Families on home visiting.

See the full list in the DHS release. You can find more detailed infant mortality data here on the DHS website.

Additionally, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been highlighting the issue of infant mortality for the past year because of the disproportionately high rates in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin. A fantastic opinion piece, “It Takes A Community to Keep Babies Alive,” profiles the partnership work being done with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and how much work still needs to be done to solve this crisis.

Jon Peacock and Sara Eskrich