By Matt Leingang
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A new coalition of medical and community groups and leaders is taking aim at Hamilton County's disturbingly high infant mortality rate.

The rate at which Hamilton County babies die before their first birthday - 10.5 for every 1,000 live births - is significantly higher than both state and national averages.

"In a community of our wealth and vast array of medical resources, that is a scandal," said Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, who is helping lead a partnership that includes the March of Dimes, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and other groups.

Their goal, which was announced at the Vernon Manor in Corryville, is to bring the county's infant mortality rate equal to or below the national average in five years.

The U.S. rate was 7.0 per 1,000 live births in 2002; Ohio's was 7.6 in 2001. Both numbers reflect the most current data available.

Infant mortality is a complex problem.

Leading causes include birth defects and premature delivery.

Risk factors include poverty, lack of prenatal care, maternal smoking and poor nutrition.

Hamilton County's problem appears even worse when it is broken out by the region's African-American and Appalachian populations

For those groups, the infant mortality rate is 30 percent higher than the national average.

Portune said the new coalition intends to have a strategy by Mother's Day that outlines exactly how it plans to tackle the problem.

One idea is to build more coordination among groups that are already working on reducing infant mortality.

For example, Children's Hospital has a program called Every Child Succeeds, which sends nurses and social workers to the homes of first-time mothers - many of whom are teenagers - and offers a variety of assistance, from parenting training, to child-health assessments, to home-safety checks.

The program has reached 6,500 women in the past five years, said Judith Van Ginkel, president of Every Child Succeeds.

The March of Dimes also is the middle of a five-year campaign to study and reduce premature births.

Former Cincinnati Mayor Dwight Tillery, who last month was named the first executive director of the Center of Closing the Health Gap, said Saturday that infant mortality will be a priority at his new agency.

The agency, launched by the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, was formed last month to work on ways to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

E-mail mleingang@enquirer.com