Online Program

335399
Breaking Down Infant Mortality: How to Use the CoIIN Framework to Identify and Prioritize Your State's MCH Efforts to Save Babies' Lives


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Zhandra Levesque, MPH, Programs, National Institute for Children's Health Quality, Boston, MA
Elaine Fitzgerald, DrPH, MIA, NICHQ, Boston, MA
According to 2010 statistics, 6.15 babies out of every 1,000 born in the U.S. die before their first birthday. This compares to an average of 5.0 babies for all other industrialized nations. Worse still, American minority populations are disproportionately affected. Since 2013, the Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN) to Reduce Infant Mortality has helped states reduce infant mortality and improve birth outcomes through quality improvement, collaborative learning and collaborative innovation. In 2014, the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality developed a framework for MCH leaders to use in narrowing down and determining their strategic priorities for reducing infant mortality. The CoIIN framework is a tool that presents many of the primary factors contributing to infant mortality in the United States and enables states, MCH officials and all stakeholders to identify where to focus their efforts. The framework breaks down the complex, multifaceted issue of infant mortality into practical, achievable steps for improvement—first, by organizing actions by periods of engagement and then by specific strategies. The strength of the CoIIN and its framework is in bringing together and uniting stakeholders from all levels—federal, state, private and public sectors—to collaborate and coordinate their work around a common aim in a rapid cycle timeframe (18-24 months) to accelerate saving babies’ lives. Given the framework’s success in assisting MCH leaders to prioritize initiatives to reduce infant mortality, it has potential to serve as a model for other public health initiatives and be of interest to other public health authorities.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health administration or related administration
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Describe primary factors influencing infant mortality in the United States Discuss your state's strategic priorities to reduce infant mortality Identify key stakeholders needed to drive your state's infant mortality initiatives forward

Keyword(s): Infant Mortality, Quality Improvement

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a project manager on the Infant Mortality CoIIN project since June 2014 and have been deeply involved with its execution. Prior to my work on CoIIN, I worked as a program manager of a research team focused on improving maternal and child well being
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.