Baltimore City’s infant mortality rate reached a record low in 2015 thanks to the work of an innovative education and outreach campaign launched in 2009.
The Baltimore Sun reports:
The city’s infant mortality rate has declined 38 percent since 2009, when officials launched an education and outreach campaign called B’more for Healthy Babies. The decrease has been most pronounced among African-American families, who have seen infant deaths cut in half.
“In 2009, Baltimore had the fourth-worst infant mortality rate in the nation,” Rawlings-Blake said. “We knew that in order to get a different outcome, we had to take a different approach. … It’s a strategic, grass-roots outreach.”
The city recorded 128 infant deaths in 2009 — a statistic health officials called “terrible.” Infant deaths dropped to 92 in 2014 and to 72 last year.
B’more for Healthy Babies, a partnership led by the city’s health department and the Family League of Baltimore, works to decrease the three leading causes of infant death: premature birth, low birth weight and unsafe sleep.
For more information read the full article in The Baltimore Sun.
The B’more for Healthy Babies program will be discussed at the MACo Winter Conference session “Sowing the Seeds for Strong Communities“. Themed “An Ounce of Prevention” the 2016 Winter Conference will be held December 7-9 at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort in Cambridge, Maryland.
Learn more about MACo’s Winter Conference:
