The Allegheny County Health Department received a $200,000 grant from the Heinz Endowments to raise awareness about the county’s Maternal and Child Health program among black families and improve the ways it serves them.

The main goal is to address racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality rates, said Dannai Wilson, program manager of the Maternal and Child Health Program.

“There are stark differences in health among population groups in Allegheny County, and understanding the reason for these differences and how to mitigate them is essential to improving public health,” Wilson said in a news release. “We must continue to work to reduce barriers so that residents have full access to services that improve their health and well-being.”

The grant will provide new electronic case management system software, with the goal of improving communication between the program and families and identifying trends within the client population, the release said. It also will be used to develop a new policy that eliminates factors that drive racial disparities in birth outcomes.

In both Pennsylvania and the United States as a whole, infant and maternal mortality is around three times higher among black families. In Allegheny County, 43 black infants died in 2017 compared to 20 white infants, according the Pennsylvania Department of Health. In Pittsburgh alone, 17 black infants died in 2017 compared to four white infants, the data showed.

In August 2018, the Heinz Endowments gave $200,000 to support Allegheny County’s “Health Equity in Action” program, which aimed to raise awareness of disparities in mortality on the basis of race and social standing.

“We have supported the Health Department for several years as a key intermediary to address maternal and child health through its network of providers and community partnerships,” said Carmen Anderson, The Heinz Endowments’ director of Equity and Social Justice. “This grant builds on that work by addressing systemic bias and racism that contribute to poor health outcomes.”

The state also has been studying the death rate for women during and after pregnancy. In September, it received $2.25 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the cause of increased deaths in recent years.

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