Addressing Infant Mortality in Kalamazoo

Abstract

Using comparative analysis between five urban cities in Michigan, this paper attempts to analyze infant mortality rates (IMR) and how they are affected by local organizations. Overall IMR for Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Pontiac are all examined. Each of these cities has a high African American (AA) to Non-Hispanic White (NHW) IMR disparity, and this is in large part due to persisting racist attitudes. The highest disparity among these cities is in Kalamazoo, where AA infants are more than {(Jur times n1orc likely to perish than NHW infants. Various organizations and movements exist within all of these cities with the purpose of lowering the AA IMR. The intervention methods used by these organizations and groups are qualitatively examined and then evaluated alongside the IMR in their respective cities for the 2013-2017 period. The successes and failures of these groups will then be used to craft a series of policies for Kalamazoo that could be used to effectively lower the city's AA IMR. Using extracted IMR and socioeconomic data, average income, poverty level, and educational attainment were ruled out as having effects on short term IMR for AA and NHW populations in these cities. The cities that had been most successful at lowering the AA IMR were Flint and Grand Rapids, which use the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) project arid the Strong Beginnings community partnership, respectively. Successful intervention programs were those that had focused on minority groups, incorporated culture into their intervention methods, and educated medical professionals on racial biases in the healthcare system. This suggested that the best policies and practices for lowering AA IMR in Kalamazoo would be one that shared all of these traits. While there are many attempts at curbing infant mortality in Kalamazoo, there are currently none that possess all three characteristics.