Listen: For Long Island mothers, community efforts address ‘an injustice made purposefully invisible’
In the third episode of “Color Code,” we take a look at efforts on Long Island to address racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality. In the U.S., Black women are three times more likely than white women to die as a result of childbirth. Black babies also have an infant mortality rate that is twice as high as it is for white babies.
We hear again from Martine Hackett, a suburban public health expert at Hofstra University on Long Island. She tells us about why she founded Birth Justice Warriors, which works to reduce maternal and infant mortality on Long Island. She views infant mortality as a sort of canary in the coal mine that indicates the overall health of a community. On Long Island, the infant mortality rate for white babies is about 2 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, for Black babies, the rate is much higher, at about 8 to 9 deaths per 1,000 live births.
