Maternal Health Commission

Client:

Audience:

Boston's mayor, Massachusetts state legislators, and the maternal health community

Goal:

Report the findings of Boston's Maternal Health Commission, a mayoral commission established to oversee citywide efforts to reduce infant mortality; influence city and state maternal health policy

Role:

Project management, production supervision, and writing; this is one of two reports we produced for the Commission during its three year charter

Three-and-a-half years ago, this city made a bold comitment to protect the lives of its most vulnerable citizens, infants at risk of dying. That commitment has paid off in new programs, new knowledge, and some improvement in infant survival. Since the Infant Survival Summit was convened in October 1990 to respond to an alarming rise in infant mortality (the number of infants who die before their first birthday), the infant mortality rate has decreased by 28 percent. The rate of 14 per 1,000 births in 1988 (the year that spurred the Summit) dropped to 10.6 in 1992, the most recent year for which statistics are available. According to the city's Division of Public Health, an eight-year trend analysis shows an overall downward trend for both black and white infant deaths.

This overall progress, however, hides the great volatility in the black infant mortality rate and the persistent discrepancy between the rates at which white and black infants in the city die....