When adults die, fixing fault is generally a straightforward and relatively uncomplicated exercise.
Disease won out. An assailant fired a gun. A traffic mishap went horribly wrong. A natural disaster took casualties.
But children are not supposed to die, and when they die before we can even celebrate their first birthday, the blame can and must be shared broadly.
Likewise, when more children reach their first birthdays and beyond, it is likely that multiple factors and forces are working collaboratively toward that result, which should be celebrated.
The opportunities and challenges for central Ohio to save the lives of more babies are apparent in two seemingly unrelated recent reports which should be viewed together.
First, Columbus Public Health and CelebrateOne, a local initiative to reduce infant mortality, reported earlier this month that stubbornly high rates of Columbus babies dying in their first 12 months of life finally pointed downward in 2018. That’s very good news.
Then a larger national report spotlighted what many who have been seeking higher infant survival rates already know: Poor housing conditions have a lot to do with how healthy we are. This finding should be factored into efforts to reduce infant mortality and to provide more affordable housing. Especially for babies and other vulnerable populations, not having a safe, stable home can be a health hazard with deadly consequences.
Homelessness of a pregnant woman or young mother can set up a scenario of poor health outcomes with babies paying the ultimate price. CelebrateOne offers a link on its website to help new mothers find help paying rent or utility bills.
“Housing and health are inseparable,” said Dr. Kelly Kelleher, Nationwide Children’s Hospital vice president for community health. He was commenting on annual findings of the 2019 County Health Rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. This year’s study focused on how housing affects health.
The report found 17 percent of Franklin County families have severe housing problems due to high costs — a rate higher than that of surrounding counties by as much as 4 to 7 percentage points.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital is to be commended for working with other partners to upgrade affordable housing in nearby neighborhoods as a way to improve community health, but Kelleher would like to see such efforts greatly expanded and extended, even to rural areas.
Statewide, 21,000 Ohio children are homeless, including 3,000 babies, according to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. Homeless shelters are no place to give infants a healthy start, and overcrowded homes with families doubling and tripling up to get by can lead to unsafe sleeping conditions.
Local advocates are rightly pleased that infant mortality in 2018 dropped substantially from the baseline comparison year of 2011 — from 9.6 per 1,000 babies, or 174 total, to 7.5 per 1,000, or 136 total. But it was disturbing that 2018’s 29 sleep-related deaths were highest so far, especially given local efforts to teach safe-sleep practices to prevent such deaths.
The two reports also reinforce the challenge of racial disparities, showing mortality rates for black babies are 2 ½ times that of white babies, and black Ohioans overall are less healthy than people living in Ohio’s unhealthiest county.
We can and must do better by all babies.