Between 15 and 16 of every 10,000 African American babies die before their first birthday. This is twice the rate of any other ethnic group in the United States and higher than the infant mortality rate in many developing countries.
Students in the mass communications program at Wilberforce University, a historically Black education institution in Ohio, established a website entitled Surviving Year One that features podcasts targeting young African Americans to promote awareness of the causes and ways to reduce the infant mortality rate in the Black community. The students who developed the website were invited to present their work at the National Early Childhood Mental Health Conference, held recently in Columbus, Ohio.
Among the podcasts available at the site are:
* Connecting Psychiatry With Infant Mortality
* Putting the Father Back in the Black Family
* Holistic Health and Infant Mortality
