Stats underscore infant health risk in B.C.

According to the Battle Creek Enquirer, the city of Battle Creek remains at a comparatively high risk for maternal and infant health.

Right Start in Michigan 2010-The Other Half compared 69 communities in Michigan with populations of at least 25,000 on eight indicators of maternal and infant health. It placed Battle Creek 10th among the 13 highest-risk communities.

The study looked at data from 1998 to 2008 and found that communities with high concentrations of low-income women were most likely to have children who had health problems and who were unprepared for school.The opportunity gap that begins in childhood often extends into adulthood, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, a project of the Michigan League for Human Services.

The opportunity gap that begins in childhood often extends into adulthood, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, a project of the Michigan League for Human Services.

Michigan could be hard-pressed to find highly educated workers in the coming generation if more interventions are not provided early on, she said.

"If we do not address these disparities at the very outset of life, we are not going to get where we want to be," she said. "And we are actually moving in the wrong direction."

Statewide, black mothers and their babies were at the highest risk, followed by Hispanics, though poverty was a better predictor of poor infant outcomes overall, according to the report. Minority babies were more than twice as likely to be born to a teen parent as white babies.

Read the full article: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20101012/NEWS01/10120311/Stats-underscore-infant-health-risk-in-B-C-