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State health official warns Mississippi remains behind U.S. on mortality, urges obstetrical system of care
Summary
Department of Health data show Mississippihas higher all-cause and infant mortality than the U.S., with a steep 2024 increase driven by African American infant deaths; the department proposed a statewide obstetrical system of care, targeted perinatal services and legislative authority for mortality review work.
Dr. Dan Edney, speaking to the Senate committee on women, children and families, said Mississippi is running well above national averages for all-cause mortality and for infant deaths and described a "disturbing trend" that has widened since the 1970s and spiked again in 2024.
"This is quite a disturbing trend that we have been monitoring at the Department of Health," Edney told lawmakers. He said state figures placed Mississippi considerably worse than the U.S. on measures dating back decades and that correcting historical data reporting does not change a more recent pattern of higher mortality.
Edney singled out maternal and infant outcomes. He said the state has lost more than 1,000 mothers to pregnancy-related causes since 1950 and that infant mortality rose to about 9.7 per 1,000 live births in 2024. He said African American infant mortality jumped above 15 per 1,000 in 2024, widening disparities sharply.
The health official described several drivers: unhealthy maternal weight, pregnancy-related hypertension and preterm birth. He cited the March of Dimes in saying unhealthy weight is implicated in more than 40% of preterm births in the state.
To tackle the problem, Edney urged renewed emphasis on prevention and on reorganizing care delivery. He detailed a planned statewide obstetrical system of care that would set levels of care for birthing hospitals, streamline transport to appropriate facilities and introduce performance-improvement oversight to identify breakdowns in real time.
"We don't have a system. Actually, we don't have a system," Edney said, arguing that an organized system could reduce costly NICU days and improve outcomes for preterm babies. He recommended expanding family-medicine OB training, leveraging certified nurse midwives, and deploying community health workers for home visitation programs.
Edney also asked legislators to consider statutory authority for the state's fetal and infant mortality review committees and privacy protections for performance-improvement activities that the department oversees.
Committee members pressed for county-level details and workforce fixes. Edney said obstetrical access maps show large swaths of the state where residents must drive more than 45 minutes to reach OB care and that roughly 52 counties lack an OB clinician on record; he recommended bolstering family-medicine OB programs and malpractice discussions to support rural providers.
The committee received printed slide packets and the Department of Healthurged members to review mortality-review recommendations as they craft session priorities. The chair said the presentation would inform the legislature's work in the coming session.
The hearing continued with nonprofit and agency witnesses scheduled to address substance use, Medicaid, childcare and child-welfare reforms.
