AP: Ohio’s infant mortality panel recommends tobacco tax hike
ANN SANNER, Associated Press
COLUMBUS – Ohio lawmakers should increase the tobacco tax, raise the tobacco-buying age to 21 and ban the sale of crib bumpers, according to a state panel tasked with addressing infant mortality.
The recommendations are among dozens in a report by the Ohio Commission on Infant Mortality released Tuesday.
Ohio’s infant mortality rate has been among the worst in the nation. Infant mortality is measured as deaths of live-born babies before their first birthdays. The three leading causes in Ohio are pre-term births, sleep-related deaths and birth defects.
The state’s overall infant mortality rate was 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, according the most recent data from 2014. And the rate for black babies was roughly three times that of whites.
Lawmakers created the commission last year to take an inventory of state programs that seek to combat infant mortality. Its recommendations come as the state has been working with hospitals, community groups, local health departments and others in nine urban areas with high rates of infant deaths. Such partnerships seek to address issues high-risk groups face, such as access to food, health care, transportation and social supports.
State Sen. Shannon Jones, a Springboro Republican who co-chaired the commission, said Ohio’s infant mortality problem disproportionately affects low-income black families in urban neighborhoods that have “largely been left behind as the economy has grown.”
“Birth outcomes simply cannot improve unless we address these adverse conditions and underlying inequities found in the places where many of these families live,” Jones said in releasing the commission’s report at a Statehouse press conference.
The report includes policy recommendations for state lawmakers, state agencies, infant mortality collaborative organizations and state grantees.
The commission did not call for a specific tobacco tax increase, though Jones said she plans to include the idea in legislation she and Democratic Sen. Charleta Tavares of Columbus are expected to introduce.
Other recommendations from the commission include:
— Publishing statewide infant mortality data each quarter.
— Requiring cultural competency training for health care providers.
— Permitting pharmacists to administer the hormone progesterone and contraceptive injections of Depo-Provera.
— Specifying pregnancy as a priority in emergency shelter and housing tax credit programs.
— Placing pregnant women in family homeless shelters rather than single adult shelters.
Online:
Ohio Commission on Infant Mortality: http://1.usa.gov/1LEtZbZ
