After years of talking about Guilford County’s stubbornly high infant mortality rate, the Board of Commissioners has decided to stop wringing its hands and start swinging hammers – with a new county task force and a public push that the chairman says won’t let up until the numbers turn around.
The kickoff meeting of the newly established Guilford County Infant Mortality Taskforce is set for Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 4 p.m. in the John H. McAdoo Conference Room on the third floor of the former Truist building at 201 W. Market St. in Greensboro.
The first order of business is to set some goals and figure out why Guilford keeps losing so many children before their first birthday compared to other places.
The board put its intent in writing last month when it adopted a resolution – sponsored by Board of Commissioners Chairman Skip Alston – establishing the task force and declaring the reduction of infant mortality a public health priority and a shared responsibility. The resolution lays out the hard numbers that have frustrated commissioners for years. In 2023, 5,757 babies were born in Guilford County and 53 didn’t reach age one.
The breakdown: 70 percent of those deaths were African American children, 11 percent were Hispanic, 11 percent were reported as Other Race and 4 percent were white.
The county’s infant mortality rate climbed from 7.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021 to 9.2 in 2023 – nearly double the national average of 5.6.
The new county task force is charged with convening hospitals, OB-GYN and pediatric providers, public health, universities, community and faith leaders, social services workers and parents with lived experience meant to identify barriers to care, propose practical solutions and recommend policies and funding priorities. It will report to the Board of Commissioners quarterly and publish an annual update the public can read in a simple and clear fashion.
Alston has been pressing this issue for decades, but two months ago the board’s patience ran thin as members talked openly about how unacceptable the trend has become. In an interview with the Rhino Times, he didn’t bother with euphemisms.
“We had 53 babies die last year in Guilford County,” Alston said. “Thirty-four of those were Black.”
“Tell us what you need,” he said. “I’ll try to fight for you to get it.”
He said the county’s long-time infant-mortality partners shouldn’t be scapegoats when the overall numbers are moving the wrong way.
Alston said he doesn’t blame Every Baby Guilford staff or its director, Jean Workman, who have been on this problem for years through programs like Adopt-A-Mom.
“I’m not the professional,” he said. “I’m just a convener.”
“One child death is too many,” he said. “Black, white, Jew or gentile.”
Alston has already begun lining up a diverse roster for the task force so the meetings don’t become “echo chambers.” He wants an OB-GYN and a midwife in the room, along with pediatric voices, a public health representative, a social services voice, a doula, someone from the faith community, hospital representatives and parents who know the heartbreak first-hand. The idea is simple – get the people who know the terrain to say plainly what’s driving the deaths here and what it would take to bring the rate down.
The list of suspects isn’t short.
Alston said he wants the group to look at access to prenatal care, basic transportation to clinics, nutrition for expectant mothers, housing conditions, mental health and substance-use treatment, and possible environmental contributors.
He also mentioned expanding mobile health clinics so that the county can bring services to neighborhoods where getting to a doctor is a problem.
“We may find that we need more mobile health clinics to go into the neighborhoods where women can’t easily get to a doctor,” the chairman said. “We may find nutrition is the issue. We may find it’s substance abuse.”
The board also continues to back long-running work that’s helping people today. At its most recent meeting, commissioners authorized acceptance of $171,176 from Every Baby Guilford to support Adopt-A-Mom – a 34-year-old program that links uninsured pregnant Guilford residents who don’t qualify for Medicaid to prenatal care and navigation services.
About 260 women a year get connected through Adopt-A-Mom to doctors, interpreters, counseling and referrals that can make the difference between a healthy delivery and a crisis that no family wants to experience.
That said, no one at the dais is pretending the county can grant-fund its way out of this challenge. The resolution’s own numbers make the point: The mortality rate has been drifting the wrong way even with committed nonprofits and a strong provider network. The task force is the county’s way of saying the status quo isn’t cutting it and the work needs to be coordinated, measurable and highly visible to the public.
Alston also made it clear he doesn’t want the new group to become a study hall that files a report and then disappears. A lot of county plans in the past have ended up on the shelf gathering dusts.
He said he has been appointing the members and presenting the roster to the board for transparency and for timely recommendations.
The county’s resolution sets expectations right up front – measurable goals, an eye on disparities and quarterly dashboards that don’t sugarcoat. The board wants root causes named in plain English and wants to see policy changes, budget decisions and partnerships that move those numbers.
If that means more nurse home-visiting where it’s needed, more prenatal clinic slots on evenings and weekends, more translation services, or another mobile unit that shows up where the bus doesn’t, then the board wants that on paper with a price tag attached.
The frustration has never been just about statistics.
Commissioners constantly hear the stories – the mother who couldn’t get off work for an appointment, the family that couldn’t find a ride, the household where healthy food is two bus transfers away, the newborn who should have had a follow-up visit but didn’t. None of those are unsolvable problems in a county with this many hospitals, clinics and smart people.
That’s part of why the board’s tone shifted from concern to urgency.
Alston said he’s heard a lot of talk over the years about what ought to happen, but this iteration, he added, is meant to turn the conversation into checklists and deadlines that the public can follow.
“That’s the question – what is it?” he said of the cause. “That’s why I want to bring these together.”
He said he wants the experts to tell the board exactly which levers to pull, then he wants to pull them – and fund them – without pretending the price is zero.
If the task force says prenatal access is the top driver, the board wants to know which clinics can expand and how quickly, the chairman said. If the data say it’s unsafe sleep, he said, then the county can mobilize the education, cribs and home visits that have cut those deaths elsewhere. If it’s substance use, then prenatal treatment slots need to exist at the hours people can actually show up.
And if the answer is “all of the above,” the chairman said, “then at least the county will be spending money on the right ‘above.’”
Alston said he’ll also keep pushing the agencies already in the fight to be explicit about needs. He said that’s been his message for years and it hasn’t changed.
“Tell us what you need to stop these babies from dying,” he said.
The county’s resolution doesn’t hide from the disparity angle either: With 70 percent of the county’s infant deaths last year among Black children, any serious plan must name that fact and work where the harm is landing.
Alston said the goal isn’t to play politics with the data – it’s to save children and to do it in the neighborhoods where the losses are most acute.
He also said he wants the task force to be as diverse as the county and he wants to keep the conversation practical.
consider offering the ‘universal basic handout($)’ to those who qualify & fund it by dismantling several existing programs. the bottom tier of society will still jack up bad statistics but it will be their incompetence/behavior/culture without question . . . not something society is ‘doing’ ‘has done’ to them
Our society denies them equal access to Healthcare. Not complicated. We are the only modern society that doesn’t consider Healthcare a human right. Conservatives are stripping g access to Healthcare as we speak. Thank goodness democrats care enough to fight for hethcare for all.
if healthcare is a ‘right’ who is required to provide it in exchange for NOTHING
Same as the rest of the developed world. Not complicated
k
Please explain the denials and how they work?
Those that lack insurance for any number of reasons….they work multiple part-time jobs that don’t offer insurance, they are between jobs and lost insurance coverage, or they are single mothers left without access to support and care, or maybe they have insurance but they live in rural communities where healthcare is much harder to access due to long-distances to prenatal care.
Good news is the Medicaid thresholds are much higher for pregnant women when it comes to supporting the birth, early prenatal care is not as easily accessed for a number of reasons. Of course, after birth, mothers are not offered as easy access to healthcare and other issues related to poverty can limit and mother and her newborn’s access to early care.
All these programs are of course at risk under the current administration potentially making this issue worse, not better.
Maybe a simple solution is, unmanned women should not have children.
Chris, your explanation for lack of care is not from denial. It is from personal choices. Why would any woman choose to become pregnant when she knows full well, she cannot afford prenatal care and the cost of raising a child, financially and emotionally. There are so many available means to birth control that for a woman to become pregnant and then expect taxpayers to pay for the decision is selfish. Women cannot reply on men to do their part to prevent pregnancy. Then the question arises: Why is 70% of infant deaths happening in the Black community?
Bring back the right to abortion should a mistake happen. Sounds like a great idea Will. Or are you one of those old men who thinks life without sex is a reasonable request?
Ok so where are the denials in your answer
Please Chris explain how our society denies anyone anything in today’s world
Chris I’ll share with you, I’m only 35 and I’ve had my share of sex without marriage and have never been told I fathered a child. All because of PREVENTION. Maybe it’s time for you to stop making assumptions about people and while you’re at it drag your slimy pointed little head out of your A$$
Bet the women you we having sex with had insurance covering the cost of birth control. Stop assuming everyone has the same quality of life and access as you have had and maybe you will see how the world really works. Your personal experiences are not always the norm.
Best wishes
That’s odd Skip that you say that you’ll keep pushing the agencies in the fight about needs. Homelessness has been a need before you were a commissioner, over 20 years but you
“ suddenly “realized it a couple years ago when you were driving into downtown and saw people living under a bridge. You sir are a sorry excuse for a leader. You are not a visionary leader, you are a reactionary wanna be leader Take a good look in a mirror Skip Maybe it’s time for you to take a long vacation
Agreed!!! And take your followers with you.
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Seventy per cent of the infant deaths in Guilford County were black.
Four per cent were white.
it’s a culture problem – lack of – & with birth control & abortion ubiquitous. unfertile them ?
Could it be……………..drug addiction? Have all these children had autopsies?
There would be the answer. Anything else would be grandstanding.
Studies strongly disagree with your opinion but don’t let facts get in the way of your emotions that drive your bigoted point of view.
Hint: white women have drug abuse issues too yet even when controlling for these types of factors the disparity still exists.
ditto
I Truly care for all babies and children who do not have adequate health care AND responsible, loving parents. No one should not take on obligations for which we are not prepared to be responsible if possible. ( Not speaking to women who are raped). But, like buying a house, a car, lottery tickets, getting married, If you are not prepared to be responsible for your responsibilities, you should not expect others to support you. CERTAINLY, catastrophes can occur. First, how many of these children are born to unwed women. If raped, the rapist should pay expenses; if consensual, both should be prepared to pay for what they made.
Abortion is also abuse/murder after the baby’s heart begins to beat (different opinions)
After children are born, parents should plan their lives to include adequate love, care, food and clothing, appropriate education. Many babies and older children die because of poor, abusive or lack of proper parental care.
If prepared, loving parents have an unavoidable medical tragedy, we should all do what we can to help.
What if we all did what we could to help without the qualifiers of the parents being prepared and having an unavoidable medical tragedy?
ditto. the raped can consider abortion
these ‘parents’ don’t plan
Another sad issue that is made political and racial in Greensboro and Guilford County. Will the multiple agencies now available be reviewed? Does Skip want another agency to overlap what is currently available? Does Skip have a true cost that tax paying citizens will have to fund or will he take $ from current agencies to fund this new proposal? Will any of the other agencies be eliminated? I would guess the majority of tax paying citizens already have a thin wallet with everday cost of living and taxes out the wazoo. Scott, thanks for letting me ask a few questions.
JV, I think the process will work through existing county agencies and community organizations. The current board rarely to never cuts anything – they only add programs. The initial study research part should not be expensive but the fix, when found, may be very expensive. Alston and other dems on the board feel like they will have a whole new boatload of taxpayer money next year with the new revaluation numbers being the ones to assess taxes. Just as they have been since the 2022 revaluation, they have been swimming in money but at the same time spending it so fast that that pool empties out very fast.
Thank you Scott. Unfortunately you are spot on and their spending habits continue to harm the majority of tax paying citizens.
The Democrats are the party of abortion – why are they getting all bent out of shape about infant mortality? Why would they care that most of those deaths are in the minority parts of the population? Isn’t that who Planned Parenthood caters to? Wasn’t that Margaret Sanger’s goal, to provide easy abortions to the black population?
I’m not trying to sound like a cold hearted bastard about this. Infant mortality is a horrible problem, no matter what the baby’s skin color is. My wife and I lost our first child when she was 4 days old, so my heart goes out to any parent who has to go through that nightmare.
I’m simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the Democrats, and how their words don’t always align with their actions. Honestly, I believe this is just another way for the city and county leadership to skim the tax payers for more money. I hope I’m wrong.
Democrats are the party of Choice and Individual Rights. The goal is to provide all women a full set of choices and services and not limit their options based on political and religious beliefs
Unlike conservatives, democrats care about children even after they are born. The hypocrisy is how the right wants to force birth for unwanted pregnancies but then limit any assistance to single mothers to help with the child they knew they couldn’t fully support in the first place.
Chris there are a lot of ways to prevent pregnancy, the pill, IUd, condom, the patch saying NO or as simple as a dime. It’s a choice Chris. A CHOICE just the same as ILLEGALs. Remember those 3 words when you make your next argument
In the US ,if you dont have i surface, those are expensive solutions. The choice for many women, isn’t always theirs. Stop assuming everyone has the same quality of life you have lived. Young, poor, and single women are often targeted by the worst of men.
Yeah, heaven forbid any adults in this country exercise personal restraint and accountability. Men need to quit behaving like dogs and women need to quit spreading those legs so fast.
More money for Skippy to spend! You can’t legislate morality, how long are we going to keep trying? This so called “numbers game “ needs to be legitimized before I can get behind it.