Mississippi mortality surveillance: Translating findings into community action

Background: Mississippi leads the nation in many rates of premature death including infant mortality, accidental child deaths, and pregnancy-associated maternal deaths. Mortality surveillance is the systematic collection of mortality data from various sources including medical records and vital statistics. Mortality data are required to identify health needs within communities, monitor progress of health service programs, and track changes over time. Case review and community action teams make recommendations for systems-level changes needed to improve future health outcomes.

Description: During 2012, Mississippi continued to conduct a Child Death Review (CDR) and implemented statewide PAMR (pregnancy-associated mortality review) and regional FIMR (fetal infant mortality review) programs. General findings and lessons learned will be listed in addition to successful translation of findings towards systems and community level change. For example, the PAMR findings are informing perinatal regionalization activities in the state. Findings from the CDR support policy changes including passage of legislation requiring graduated driving licenses for adolescents. FIMR community actions resulted in community resource expansions including grief counseling for families experiencing loss and grandparenting classes emphasizing safe sleep, smoking cessation, and infant resuscitation.

Lessons learned: Implementation of such programs require huge commitments of staff time, travel resources, funding, and community involvement to produce desired outcomes. Agency and community buy-in are critical to the success and sustainability of mortality reviews over time. The presentation will list challenges encountered along with strategies utilized to overcome them, as well as relating examples of successful translation of findings towards community action and improvements.