In Kalamazoo County, nonwhite infants continue to have one of the highest death rates in the state. A task force that has studied the issue says it won’t be solved overnight, but it hopes the number of deaths can be significantly cut by 2020, members told the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.
Right now infants of color in Kalamazoo County have one of the highest mortality rates in Michigan, about four times the rate for white babies. Wealthy families face an elevated risk as well as impoverished ones.
Western Michigan University public health researcher Cathy Kothari says that while Kalamazoo has plenty of resources for mothers, they don’t seem to reach everyone.
“Our system works very well for white families. It works really bad for families of color,” she says.
The initiative says cultural differences between service providers and mothers seem to be part of the problem. It’s calling for “cultural competency” training to improve communication and trust. On Tuesday the group also called on Kalamazoo County to create a task force to study the county's cultural competency and report its findings to the County Commission.
Kalamazoo YWCA chief executive Grace Lubwama says women could also use more help connecting with services.
“We are such a resource-full community but I think it’s hard for people to navigate those resources. We as providers have been struggling to figure out who is who and who is doing what,” she says.
Lubwama says a coalition of groups working on the infant mortality issue hopes to launch a phone line this fall as a “one-stop” resource for pregnant women.
