The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recently launched a new plan to address racial “inequities” in infant mortality rates and to improve the health of mothers and newborns in the county.

“Birth outcomes differ sharply based on the race and ethnicity of residents, with the sharpest difference occurring between white and Asian women and Black women,” said Barbara Ferrer, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

In 2016, the infant mortality rate in Los Angeles County was four infant deaths per 1,000 live births, according to officials.

But black newborns died at more than three times the rate of white and Asian infants (10.4 per 1,000 births, compared to to 3.2 and 2 per 1,000). Black infant mortality rates were more than two times the rate of Latino infants (3.9 per 1,000) in the county, according to the agency.

“Research shows the root cause of infant health inequality lies in the differing social experiences and access to resources of their mothers. It points to stress, including stress associated with poverty and racism, as the link between a mother’s race/ethnicity or community of residence and the health of her baby,” said Ferrer.

Related: California Infant Mortality Rate Reaches Record Low

The plan put forward by the department of public health aims to reduce black-white inequality in infant mortality by 30 percent by 2023.  

Some of the key features of the plan, according to county documents, include:

• reducing the chronic stress faced by black women due to economic hardship and the daily experience of racism.
• Improve the experiences of black women receiving county services by offering implicit bias training to all county employees.
• Enhance clinical services for black women that are known to improve healthy births.

For more information about the five-year plan, visit the department of public health’s website here.

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