Why Do Black Babies Die More Often Than White Babies?
USC Forum Explores the Effects of Economic and Racial Inequality on Health and Illness
What: A panel of expert and the community convene a forum on the racial disparity in the infant mortality rate after the screening of When the Bough Breaks, part of the PBS documentary series Unnatural Causes… Is Inequality Making Us Sick?
The forum is one of dozens across the country focusing on inequality and health since the series aired earlier this year. The documentary first crisscrossed the country investigating the stories and findings that are shaking up conventional notions about what makes us healthy or sick.
Who:
Dr. Tyan Parker Dominguez, assistant professor in the USC School of Social Work, is featured in the PBS series Unnatural Causes. Her research focuses on persistent racial/ethnic disparities in infant mortality, preterm delivery and low birth weight. She has also studied the role racism-related stressors might play in perpetuating health disparities.
Dr. Jack Turman, director, Center for Premature Infant Health and Development, USC Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Turman was appointed to the California Premature Infant Health Project, where he will help guide the research and service vision for California’s preterm infants and their families.
Dr. Lavonna Blair Lewis, clinical associate professor in the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
When: 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday, November 5.
Where: The California Endowment, 1000 North Alameda Street, Los Angeles.
More: For more than a century, African American infants have died at twice the rate of white infants, says Parker Dominguez. For whites, four out of 1,000 babies die. For African Americans, 10 out of 1,000 babies die.
Although birth outcomes are generally better for those with higher education and income, black women with college degrees are still more likely to give birth prematurely than white women who haven’t finished high school, says Parker Dominguez.
Research in this area, including Parker Dominguez’s, suggests that the chronic stress of racism can become embedded in the body, negatively affecting physical health, and taking a heavy toll on children even before they leave the womb.
USC experts will explore why patterns of health and illness appear to reflect underlying patterns of economic and racial inequality. This growing health equity movement is reframing the national debate as it focuses attention on the underlying social and economic conditions that shape the health of populations. The recent World Health Organization report “Closing the Gap in a Generation” confirms that zip codes and household wealth are stronger predictors of health outcomes than personal behaviors or medical care.
“Health disparities are not inevitable, they are the result of decisions we make as a society,” Parker Dominguez says. “We can create the conditions that promote health for everyone. We have the knowledge. Do we have the will?”
November is National Prematurity Awareness Month.
Sponsored by the March of Dimes, Greater Los Angeles, the Pasadena Black Infant Health Program, Los Angeles Black Infant Health, the California Black Women’s Health Project, the Pasadena Birthing Project, the USC Center for Premature Infant Health and Development and the USC School of Social Work
The World Health Organization report “Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health” is at www.who.int/social_determinants/final_report/en. For more on the PBS series Unnatural Causes, visit unnaturalcauses.org.
Contact: Eddie North-Hager (213) 740-9335 or edwardnh@usc.edu
