Zero Racial Disparities in Infant Mortality by 2033

When FLOURISH St. Louis launched our action teams two years ago, our goal was to bring together experts and community members to reduce infant mortality in the St. Louis region. We’ve made progress in several of these areas, such as safe sleep and improving transportation access, but realized that one fundamental issue needed to be addressed more prominently – the issue of racial inequity.

Through the last two years, it became clear that every barrier we explored negatively impacted Black families more than White families. Black babies are dying three times more often than White babies, and our solutions must focus on closing this gap. But to do this right, we must shift how FLOURISH works – and bring the community most impacted by these barriers to the center.

 

Centering Around the Community

In November, more than 80 people joined FLOURISH at our two retreats. During these retreats, we introduced the proposed structure for the next phase of FLOURISH, which will focus more on the community to achieve our goal of addressing racial disparities in infant mortality. A cabinet of community members will serve as the drivers of FLOURISH’s work. While community members have always been involved, this new structure elevates them to the role of primary decision-makers for FLOURISH. Community members are critical, because they have the lived experience that will identify exactly where barriers exist, and what solutions can best overcome them, so we can achieve greater racial equity.

Retreat participants were excited to hear about this shift, and several community members have already volunteered to serve on the community leaders cabinet. We also spent time as a group identifying priority areas for where this new cabinet should focus efforts. Each person was given five votes, and the top-ranked areas included:

  • Linking to Services, which included centralizing resources for families and increasing home visiting and community health worker programs.
  • Elevating the Black Voice, which centered around bringing the community’s voice to the forefront, and allowing the community to drive decisions that impact it.
  • Transportation, primarily improving transportation to medical care.
  • Holistic Care Providers, which included trauma training for physicians, mental health care access and safe sleep training.

These priorities will be on the community leaders cabinet’s agenda. The cabinet also will have support from professionals working in health care, managed care, transportation, nonprofits, education and more, who can leverage influence and resources to support solutions identified by community members. This will be essential to helping us make large, systems-level changes that transform how our region works.

Investing in Solutions

Another change is that FLOURISH will be able to invest in other organizations through grant funding. A review committee, made up largely of community members, will allocate funding to work that aligns with our north star – to achieve zero racial disparities in infant mortality. More information about grant funding will be available in early 2019.

This is an exciting time for FLOURISH. We are grateful for the leadership of our cabinet and action teams, and look forward to taking this next step to align even more closely with the community most impacted by injustice and oppression. If you have an interest in being more involved in FLOURISH’s work, contact us at info@flourishstlouis.org. Together, we will make St. Louis a place where race no longer predicts the health outcomes of Black moms and babies.