Eliminating racial inequalities in birth outcomes

The latest edition of the Unnatural Causes newsletter featured a recent article by Michael Lu and colleagues, who propose a 12-point plan for closing the black-white infant mortality gap. The article, published in the journal Ethnicity & Disease, outlines a life-course approach to eliminating racial inequalities in birth outcomes. The authors boil down the approach to a 12-point plan:

• Provide interconception care to women with prior adverse pregnancy outcomes
• Increase access to preconception care to African American women
• Improve the quality of prenatal care
• Expand healthcare access over the life course
• Strengthen father involvement in African American families
• Enhance coordination and integration of family support services
• Create reproductive social capital in African American communities
• Invest in community building and urban renewal
• Close the education gap
• Reduce poverty among African American families
• Support working mothers and families
• Undo racism

What’s important about this list is that it identifies interventions at many different levels—from clinics to communities to the country. The list also moves beyond the usual focus on health care by identifying basic social and economic factors that drive health inequalities, including poverty and systemic racism. For each recommendation, the article reviews evidence for why each point matters and highlights interventions that have made a difference. This evidence-approach could help to strengthen current efforts to address infant mortality in Leon County.

The article is freely available from the Unnatural Causes website.

Next HEAT meeting is October 19

Update, 10/13/10:The location for next week’s meeting has been set: We will meet at the Greater Frenchtown Revitalization Council, 421 W Georgia St. Thanks to Miaisha Mitchell for hosting.

Hold the date for the next regular HEAT meeting: October 19, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. The location for the meeting has yet to be determined — if you are interested in hosting the meeting, please drop us a line.

We invite your input in crafting the agenda for the October meeting. After the summer break, our plan is to focus discussion on what we have accomplished to date and where we need to go next. In particular, we’d like to take stock of our work on Unnatural Causes and two HEAT spinoffs—the Food Policy Council and HEAT Heart Health—that are moving ahead with success. How can HEAT best support and integrate these projects? What are the priorities for future work? How can we ensure the sustainability of our efforts? What benchmarks should we use to gauge our success in promoting health equity?

Our work will succeed or fail by the strength of our partnerships, so please hold the date and stay tuned for more information about the meeting location. Come make your voice heard.