African-American babies in Milwaukee are three times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies. It’s a fact that’s remained stubbornly resistant to change, despite widespread community efforts.
Emmanuel Ngui, an associate professor in community behavioral health promotion in the Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, is working to improve those numbers. He says social determinants – poverty, lack of jobs, discrimination, lack of access to health care – are underlying factors that make it hard to move the needle on infant mortality rates. Within that context, though, he’s focused much of his work on one particular piece of the effort – looking at the impact of African-American fathers on maternal and child health.
