That’s Stupid #1: Infant mortality rates ‘still appaling’

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Story

The article is in bold; my comments are in normal print.

Infant mortality rates 'still appalling'
Genesee County only community to improve stats
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Thursday, May 08, 2008
By Linda Angelo
langelo@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6340

Black babies are 2 1/2 times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies in Genesee County,

Not sure how I feel about this lede. Ledes are supposed to grab the reader's attention and give the most important ("relevant." journalists like that word.) information. The further the information is to the end of the article, the less likely the reader is to read it. (Think: how often do you read news articles all the way through?) You're supposed to give the information as quickly as possible, cramming the most important information into the beginning.

Reporter did a good job with the attention grabbing bit--in Genesee County, racism is one of the best ways to grab attention. She gave a fact that, technically, isn't racist, but the racism's implied, or anyway can be inferred easily. (You know what else is stupid? I found out a lot of people don't know the difference between "imply" and "infer." They're completely opposite words; how can you confuse them?) In Genesee County (especially in Flint), if you say "black" and "white," even in the context of an after-school chess club, people automatically assume you're talking about race. This isn't entirely unfounded: there's a good (and by good I mean bad, or anyway large) amount of racist nonsense going on in Flint, so most of the time "black" and "white" do refer to race and not to chess pieces, and most of the time a story mentioning race is a story about racism.

But infant mortality isn't an issue of racism, unless doctors are refusing to take care of infants of a certain race--if this is the case, the article doesn't discuss it. The article begins with "hey, everybody, we've got racism again" then fails to explain where the racism is. The average Flint-born-and-bred reader is left feeling like something racist is going on, which only increases the racist feelings that lead to racist comments and actions.

There is a race issue, however, even if it's not a racism issue. A disparity that large doesn't happen coincidentally. But the article doesn't give any reason for why this disparity exists. Hypotheses?

which also has the highest white infant mortality rate among 11 urban areas targeted in a study.

Confused. I guess the headline and the lede don't directly contradict, but it sounds like they do. Anyway, this is rather grim: Genesee County is the only county to improve infant mortality statistics (sub-headline), the white infant mortality rate is the highest in the study even though it's improved, and the black infant mortality rate is even higher.

That's stupid. I haven't done extensive research into the causes of infant mortality, but I'm guessing these are some contributing factors:
--parents not having enough money/time/resources to take care of their kids
--parents not caring enough to take care of their kids
--fathers abandoning pregnant, um, not wives, I guess... abandoning the women whose pregnancies they are partially responsible for
--mothers drinking/smoking/drugging while pregnant

I'm not going to say that poverty is stupid because that's a complicated issue. But here's some practical advice to solve most of the other issues: don't have sex until you're married, then only with your spouse, stay married, and take care of your child before s/he's born as well as after.

But I need to watch myself. Most of the people I hang out with--and this has been true always--have agreed with me on this, so I haven't had to deal with any social pressure to have sex or use drugs. I'm not going to condemn any individual person for their own actions--that isn't my place. But, whether it's my place to say it or not, the truth is that if people would take better care of their kids, infant mortality rates would go down. To quote Dr. Mitchell, "it's not about you."

The disparity between white and black infant mortality rates is growing in most of Michigan's large urban areas even as the state makes improvements in reducing risk factors, the study shows.

The Hillsdale in me reels and wants to scream "the state? what has the state got to do with it?" but I don't know enough about this to say anything coherent. I'll let my Hillsdale friends react in comments.

"In this country we believe in equal opportunity, and all children deserve a healthy start," said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, which produced the report.

Again, there's the implied racism for an issue that isn't really racist. If the state were giving infant health care to whites and not blacks or blacks and not whites, that would be racist. But, that's not the issue.

"When we have this disparity at the onset of life, it has ramifications throughout that child's life."

This is more dumb than stupid. Of course infant mortality has ramifications throughout the child's life--if he dies at six months, chances are he won't be an Eagle Scout.

And also, birth isn't the onset of life. Zygotes live.

In 2004-06, Genesee County's infant mortality rate for white infants was 7.3 deaths per 1,000 infants, while the rate for black babies was 18.6 deaths per 1,000 births.

Statewide, black infants are three times more likely to die before their first birthday.

The disparity is a problem that Genesee County has been working on for years, said John McKellar, director of personal health services at the Genesee County Health Department.

Why are we working on closing the gap? That's stupid. Kill a bunch of white kids under the age of two and you've solved the disparity problem while making the actual problem worse. Don't focus on the disparity. Focus on keeping kids alive.

"In 2001, the disparity ratio was 3.6 in that particular year, which means African-American babies were dying 3.6 times more than white babies," he said. "While 2.5 times is still appalling, it's better than it has been in the past."

Part of the infant mortality problem stems from low birth weights, which increased by 13 percent in Genesee County between the periods of 1998-2000 and 2004-06.

Low birth weight babies also were a problem in Flint, which had the third highest rate among Michigan's 69 largest communities. The city experienced a 21 percent jump in mothers who smoked during pregnancy as well.

"Both tend to be responses to increasing socioeconomic stress, which is going on in our community," McKellar said. "Women who are of lower socioeconomic status feel more stressed these days and the consequences often are pre-term birth and an increase in smoking."

That, and women who don't have a stable home situation are more stressed. Men and women, don't have sex unless you're ready to take care of a child--that means married. Men, if the pregnancy is partly your fault, don't abandon the woman.

The Kids Count study, which was conducted through the Michigan League for Human Services, provided some good news too.

Genesee County was the only county outside of southeast Michigan to experience improved infant mortality rates for both groups.

Sorry, but that isn't good news.

For white babies, infant mortality rates dropped from 8.5 to 7.3 deaths per 1,000 births between the periods of 1998-00 and 2004-06 while the rates for black babies declined from 20.9 to 18.6.

That is good news.

Genesee County also fared well among women who smoked during pregnancy, ranking 28th among Michigan's 83 counties,

What?

and saw a 16 percent drop in teenage pregnancy between 2000 and 2006.

Why was there a drop?

Flint experienced a drop in teenage pregnancy as well as pre-term births.

Immediately I want to know whether the children were carried for longer or aborted. Not necessarily assuming one way or the other, but I'd like to know.

"With teenage pregnancy rates there are multiple efforts taking place across the county," said Amy Krug, vice president for programs at Priority Children.

"One that we are involved in is the Carrera program, which is nationally recognized and has (helped) delay the onset of teen sexual activity.

Is teen sexual activity a disease that develops over time? I chuckled at the word choice, but I don't have anything biting or sarcastic (or anything else) to say.

There needs to be more done even though we are starting to see the rates go down."

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