Michigan Infant Mortality Reduction Plan

For every 1,000 live births in Michigan, seven infants die before reaching their first birthday, a rate that is higher than the national average. In 2010 the rate for African American babies was double the state rate ( 7.1) for all births; 14.2 out of 1,000 African American infants die before they turn one. In 2011, Governor Rick Snyder identified reducing infant mortality as a public health priority. The Department of Community Health released an Infant Mortality Reduction Plan in August 2012 that outlines strategies and goals for 2012-2015. It was developed collaboratively with community, health care, academic, public health, and other maternal and child health stakeholders across the state.

The states progress in reducing infant mortality is publicly monitored on the Michigan Dashboard, an online data reporting tool used to provide a quick assessment of the states performance in key areas. It can be viewed at http://www.michigan.gov/midashboard. The rates posted for 2013, the last year with confirmed data, are a state rate of 7.0. The Health Statistics data shows an infant mortality rate per 1,000 as 13.1 for African American babies, so some progress has been made.

The Michigan Department of Community Health received roughly $800,000 in FY13 to begin implementing the Infant Mortality Reduction Plan. For FY14, the governor recommended $2.5 million to continue those efforts. Progress so far has included:

• Development and implementation of an Adolescent Health Risk Behavior Assessment with the MI Quality Improvement Consortium to reduce untended pregnancies
• Work in high risk communities to use evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programming
• Production and distribution of public service announcements to promote safe sleep practices in partnership with the Department of Human Services
• Update and promotion of safe sleep online training for health and child care providers
• Implementation of a Medicaid policy to require birthing hospitals to use evidence-based guidelines for elective delivery before 39 weeks to eliminate medically unnecessary early deliveries.

A copy of the plan can be downloaded at http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdch/MichiganIMReductionPlan_393783_7.pdf

Updated February 2016.