Greenwood Commonwealth. August 8, 2023.
Editorial: Fetal Deaths Are Too High In Miss.
There was no good news in a recent report about fetal deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mississippi continues to lead the nation in this tragic measurement, same as it does in the death rate of infants under 1 year of age.
A story from Mississippi Today said that CDC statistics for 2021 indicate there were 10 deaths of fetuses after at least 20 weeks of gestation per 1,000 live births in Mississippi. The national stillborn death rate for that year was 5.73.
Only five other states had stillborn death rates above 8 per 1,000 live births: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada and Wyoming.
Mississippi, unfortunately, compares better to territories such as Guam (11 stillbirths per 1,000) and Puerto Rico (12) than it does to the other 49 states.
The CDC information points out Mississippi’s inability to support pregnancies and infants the way other states have. The state’s challenge is to figure out why this has happened and what can be done to reduce it so that our stillborn and infant mortality rates are in line with the rest of the country.
Probable suspects in these high rates include a tendency to avoid prenatal care for the first months of a pregnancy, the state’s lower per capita income, and our rural nature that makes health care more difficult for some to reach.
There’s no getting around race. Nationally, the Black fetal mortality rate is literally twice as high as the white rate. There’s no reason to expect Mississippi is any different.
The CDC report doesn’t delve deeply into non-medical causes of still births, with one significant exception: smoking. Nationally in 2021, there were only 5 stillbirths per 1,000 live births among pregnant women who did not smoke. But among smokers, the death rate was 9.6. Any effort to reduce the number of stillbirths should begin right there.
To their credit, state health officials appear determined to reduce Mississippi’s stillbirths. The Department of Health and the state Division of Medicaid are setting up a “Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies” program that will send registered nurses to the homes of women with a high-risk pregnancy or who have recently given birth.
The Department of Health also is setting up an obstetric program that will organize the transfer of women in a high-risk pregnancy to better care as needed.
It’s a start to solving a problem at which most of the country is doing better than Mississippi. Bringing the rates of stillbirths and infant deaths into line with national averages may take years, but it’s simply got to be done. There is no need to be perpetually last.
Actually, there is one speck of good news in the CDC report about stillborn babies. Since 1990, the national fetal mortality rate has been on a slow but steady decline, from about 7.5 per 1,000 live births to 2021’s 5.73. That means Mississippi can improve its figures, too.
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Columbus Dispatch. August 4, 2023.
Editorial: The pandemic’s impact on the state, in numbers
Early in 2020, as the first massive waves of COVID-19 illnesses and deaths were sweeping the globe, we were told that the pandemic would continue to impact lives well after the illnesses and deaths slowed to a trickle, if not disappeared altogether.
Now, 3 ½ years, 6.9 million deaths and 768,000,000 COVID cases later, we can look at some of the ways the pandemic has affected our world, our nation, our state and our communities in terms other than sickness and death.
We’ve seen a rejuvenated “anti-vaxxer” movement that began when some Americans bristled at COVID vaccinations. It will take years for public confidence in vaccines to reach pre-COVID levels, if ever.
The pandemic continues to affect how we work as well. Data from a Forbes study showed that 12.7% of Americans now work exclusively from home or a remote location and 28.2% combine remote and in-person work. The reliance on technology that allowed adults to work remotely and school children to learn remotely has provided enormous incentive to extend high-speed internet services to every corner of the nation, no matter how isolated. The effects of the pandemic on world and national economic persists through inflation but in the U.S. there is cause for optimism that the economy may rebound with suffering a recession.
In an effort to drill down on the impacts of COVID to the state level, the non-profit, non-partisan National Conference on Citizenship, in partnership with Fair Count and the Southern Economic Advancement Project released its Pandemic To Prosperity: South report to measure the impacts of the pandemic on Southern states and their progress in meeting those challenges. It’s the third report generated by the group since January.
Among the Mississippi findings:
• Mississippi’s economy has recovered from the shock of the pandemic and the state now has 1.0% more jobs than it did in February 2020 before the pandemic hit.
• 33% of Mississippians who have ever had Covid also suffered from Long Covid symptoms.
• Only about 7% of Mississippians are up-to-date with Covid vaccines, the lowest rate in the nation.
• In Mississippi, 18% of the working-age population lacks health insurance. The state has not adopted Medicaid expansion, a key campaign issuein the Governor’s race this November.
• Although efforts to expand Broadband are well under way, 19% of Mississippi households have no internet at home — not even a cellular data plan — compared to 10% of non-Southerners.
• 79% of Mississippi counties are news deserts (1 or fewer newspapers), meaning residents have less access to critical information.
• 28% of Mississippi children live in poverty, compared to 16% of children outside the South. Mississippi has passed a law that preempts localities from passing increased minimum wage ordinances.
• 18% of Mississippians reported their household went hungry in June.
• Despite gains made in voter turnout during the pandemic, Mississippi has enacted restrictive voting laws since 2021.
While not all of the above are directly related to the pandemic, it’s clear that Mississippi is making some progress in some areas, little progress in others and even regressed in some areas.
Policy can address many of these issues, which is why voters play such an important role in where we go from here. The party primaries come Tuesday with the general election to follow in November. The information found here andthe candidates’ positions on them, would be a good way to evaluate for whom you should cast your vote.
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