At Generate Health, we continuously evaluate the landscape of maternal and child health in the St. Louis region. In 2017, data highlighted a continued trend that we have found troubling for years: Black babies and their mothers have worse birth and pregnancy outcomes than White babies and their mothers. In fact, Black babies in St. Louis die at a rate of 3 times that of White babies.
Our Board of Directors examined this data further and discovered that if we overcome racial inequity in our region, 81 more Black babies will celebrate their birthdays every year. As an organization who has been working to decrease infant mortality for many years, we feel that we must focus on the disparities that exist in our region that lead to so many Black babies and their mothers experiencing significant health issues or loss of life. With determination in decreasing the racial inequities that exist surrounding maternal and child health, Generate Health’s Board of Directors has established a new vision for our organization:
Zero racial disparities in infant mortality and maternal health.
Furthermore, with this new vision, the Board of Directors amended Generate Health’s mission:
Generate Health mobilizes and inspires the St. Louis region to advance racial equity in pregnancy outcomes, family well-being, and community health.
This new vision challenges us to look at how we align our initiatives’ work in focusing explicitly on racial equity and raising community voice. We know the needle on infant mortality in our region will not significantly move unless we gather our partners and the community together on this common agenda and effort. Our work must be race-specific in approaches that better understand and address the ways our region’s institutions, policies and systems create, contribute to and perpetuate this inequity.
To define our approach and role moving forward, we have adopted 4 strategic priorities through which we will work. Generate Health will:
- Illuminate the root causes of racial disparities in infant mortality and maternal health
- Advocate for the redirection of resources to eliminate racial disparities in infant mortality and maternal health
- Catalyze action within the ecosystem
- Advance regional accountability for equitable systems
We must address this critical crisis in our community where Black babies and their mothers are dying more often than others. This is unacceptable and we will be part of the solution going forward. Join us as we start this important work by attending our Quarterly Coalition Meeting on March 15th where our theme this year will focus on racial equity in maternal and child health.
Sincerely,
Kendra Copanas
Executive Director
Generate Health STL
