The Impact of Prenatal WIC Participation on Infant Mortality and Racial Disparities

The infant mortality rate (IMR) is a key in-dicator of the health status of a community, and reduction of infant mortality is one of the stated goals of the Healthy People 2010 consensus document.1 Racial disparities in IMR have been documented repeatedly; African Americans and other racial/ethnic minority groups experience an IMR that is significantly higher than the IMRWhites experience.2 Factors influencing the birth of extremely preterm infants as well as access to specialized obstetric and pediatric care primarily determine disparities in neonatal mortality.2 Because neonatal mortality accounts for about 67 % of the national IMR, risk of preterm birth is an important factor to assess when seeking to decrease infant mortality.3 The Hamilton County, Ohio, IMR averaged 11 deaths per 1000 live births during 2003– 2007 according to data compiled and provided via e-mail by J. Besl (project analyst, Chil