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Senate panel hears infant and child death review; lawmakers press for county-level data and statutory fixes
Summary
The Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee reviewed the Arkansas Infant and Child Death Review Program annual report, which flagged unsafe sleep, low seat-belt use and higher suicide rates among Black children; lawmakers requested county-level, cause-specific data and asked the program to propose statutory clarifications.
Dawn Porter, the community program supervisor for the Arkansas Infant and Child Death Review Program, presented the program's annual report to the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, outlining how 11 volunteer local teams review deaths of infants and children that meet statutory criteria under Act 18 of 02/2005.
Porter said the report highlights several actionable trends: motor-vehicle deaths where child occupants were not belted were higher than those with seat belts (1.0 versus 0.57 per 100,000); undetermined deaths tied to sleep environments had a higher rate than other undetermined causes (4.57 versus 0.29 per 100,000); and the reported suicide death rate for Black children exceeded…
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