Kalamazoo’s babies of color DIE 4x MORE than white babies
About Us
Cradle Kalamazoo, is a multi-agency community initiative that aims to identify and implement evidence-based and holistic interventions to reduce infant death and promote respect for families, women, and their children. Cradle Kalamazoo’s scope has been maternal-infant health, as pregnant women have been a priority focus from our inception. Our strategies are data-driven from our Fetal Infant Mortality Review Team (FIRM) to create best practice recommendations that are specific to the needs of our community.
Cradle consists of 30+ Community Partners that are committed to improving birth outcomes by creating zero disparities in infant mortality between Black and White babies born in Kalamazoo. Our goal is to report an overall infant mortality rate of less than 3.0 per 1,000 live births in Kalamazoo.
Cradle Kalamazoo follows a collective impact strategy that progresses from collaborative planning and capacity building to target community actions and intervention to community system changes. Launched in 2014, Cradle Kalamazoo, previously know as Kalamazoo infant Mortality initiative Community Action (KIMCAI), centers its work on a public health model that recognizes people live in a social and environmental context that affects their health. A combination of distal (structural, political, and economic) factors and more proximate (community, organizational, family, and individual) contribute individually and together to explain the observed phenomenon of racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality. As such, work toward overcoming these factors must include organizations that touch on these varying distal and proximate factors.
Cradle Kalamazoo is committed to improving birth outcomes in our Community through deliberate and intensive communitywide action, which combines grassroots engagement, a focus on Equity and Health Equity, evidence and practice-based programs, targeted service delivery, institutional coordination, and measured accountability.
The Bronson Health Foundation (BHF), a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) organization, connects the generosity of individuals and organizations with Bronson Healthcare to support its healing mission. BHF is the fiduciary for the Cradle Kalamazoo collaboration. As such, BHF acknowledges and receipts all grants and philanthropy for Cradle Kalamazoo with rare exceptions when the funder of a grant or an individual philanthropist requires or insists their funds go directly to a different organization.
Goals
- Ensuring health equity of programs, policies, and providers
- Building a perinatal home visitation network
- Promoting and educating about infant safe-sleep programs
- Providing reproductive health education and support
Partners
Borgess Health
Bronson Healthcare
Catholic Charities Diocese of Kalamazoo – Caring Network
City of Kalamazoo
Douglass Community Association
Eliminating Racism Creating/Celebrating Equity (ERACCE)
Elizabeth Upjohn Community Healing Center
Family Health Center
Gryphon Place
Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy and Action in the Community (ISAAC)
Kalamazoo Community Foundation
Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
Kalamazoo County Department of Health and Human Services
Kalamazoo County Health & Community Services
Kalamazoo Regional Educational Services Agency (KRESA)
The Links, Inc.
McLaren Health Plan
Meridian Health Plan
Molina Health Plan
NAACP – Metropolitan Kalamazoo Branch
Northside Ministerial Alliance
Planned Parenthood of Michigan
Priority Health Choice
Rootead
Savior’s Home Healthcare
Seeds for Success
Twenty Hands
United Healthcare Community Plan
United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region
Western Michigan University Department of Psychology
Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine
YWCA Kalamazoo
Funders
Irving S. Gilmore Foundation
Kalamazoo County Health Plan
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), Health Disparities Reduction and Minority Health Section (HDRMHS)
Michigan Health Endowment Fund
United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region
Research
Here is some of the research Cradle Kalamazoo is using to support our work —
Cathy Kothari, PhD with the support of Kalamazoo County Healthy Babies Healthy Start, performed an Infant Mortality Trend Analysis. In this study, Dr. Kothari found:
- In Kalamazoo, babies of color are 4x more likely to die before their first birthday than their white neighbors.
- Babies of color are affected across income. Babies of color from higher income families are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than their lower income white neighbors.
- Although infant mortality is high among all infants of color, the reasons infants die varies based on their family’s income. Many lower-income infants of color are dying from sleep-related causes and higher income infants of color are dying largely due to prematurity.
- The race of the infant affects infant mortality risk more than their family’s socioeconomic status.
- Most infant deaths are preventable. Through specialized interventions, racial disparities in infant death can be reduced and eventually eliminated.
