141st APHA Annual Meeting

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Eliminating disparities in infant mortality: Success and lessons learned from select communities

Monday, November 4, 2013 : 4:30 PM - 4:50 PM

Piia Hanson, MSPH , Women's and Infant Health, Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, Washington, DC
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that an African American infant living in the United States is still more than twice as likely to die in the first year of life as a white infant. To address disparities in infant mortality, CityMatCH, the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs and the National Healthy Start Association, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, created the Partnership to Eliminate Disparities in Infant Mortality (PEDIM). The purpose of this partnership is to eliminate racial inequities contributing to infant mortality in U.S. urban areas by establishing an 18-month Action Learning Collaborative (ALC). The first cohort to participate in this ALC included teams from Los Angeles, CA, Aurora, CO, Pinellas County, FL, Chicago, Illinois, Columbus, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second cohort includes teams from Ft. Worth, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, Boston, Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, and the state of Michigan.

Each of these teams have developed action, evaluation and sustainability plans to carry out selected strategies related to any aspect of addressing racism and infant mortality they deemed appropriate for their community or state. This session will present a summary of the efforts from select ALC teams from the Partnership to Eliminate Disparities in Infant Mortality. In addition this session will provide information on resources available that can assist others in doing similar work in their own communities. Specifically, this workshop will offer useful tools for action planning and program evaluation to address racial inequities that contribute to infant mortality.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Program planning

Learning Objectives:
Describe effective community practices for addressing racism's impact on infant mortality Describe best practices for getting the community to talk about racism

Keywords: Health Disparities, Infant Mortality

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a partner on the project and assisted in developing/administering the tools for the community teams to develop action, evaluation and sustainability plans.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.