Saving black babies by saving a whole neighborhood
This project received support from the Center for Health Journalism's California Fellowship and its Fund for Journalism on Child Well-being.
Other stories in the series include:
Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies. My family is part of this statistic
America's black babies are paying for society's ills. What will we do to fix it?
Why are black babies twice as likely to die as white babies in the US?
What's behind the high black infant mortality rates? Racism, not race
Empowering moms – and dads – in the black infant mortality crisis
Moving from talk to action on black infant mortality plan
A few times a year in Castlemont, a neighborhood in East Oakland, residents come together for a community market. Priska Neely/KPCC
Black babies are two times more likely to die in their first year of life than white babies. This is a gap that has persisted in our country for decades. Around the country, people are trying in big ways and small to close it.
The Castlemont neighborhood in East Oakland is known as a Best Babies Zone. The idea of this initiative is that improving life for everyone in the community will ultimately save babies.
[This story was originally published by KPCC.]