By Katie Knapp Schubert
Omaha, NE – Five of every 1,000 babies born in Douglas County in 2010 died before their first birthday.
That's one finding in the Health Department's new State of Public Health report, presented Wednesday. Douglas County's overall infant mortality rate is lower than the national average. But Health Department Director Dr. Adi Pour says the infant mortality rate in Douglas County's black community is much higher. "We have a health disparity that our African-American infant mortality rate is three times as high than the infant mortality rate for our white population. And that we need to change, and we've been working on that very hard. But it is a very challenging and difficult thing to do."
Other findings in the State of Public Health report are 162 more chlamydia cases and 145 fewer gonorrhea cases in Douglas County in 2010. Dr. Pour says more than half of those STD cases are in young people ages 15 to 24.