Nebraska earned a “B” letter grade on this year’sMarch of Dimes Premature Birth Report Card.
Mary Larsen is Director of Program Services for the Nebraska Chapter of the March of Dimes. She says this year, in addition to looking at the state’s preterm birthrate overall, the report card also looked at six counties that had the greatest number of births and rated them against preterm birth rates in 2013.
Larsen says the report indicates whether the rates were higher, lower or the same. She says three counties were higher and the rest were lower than the rates from 2013.
"One of the other pieces that we were provided information on was the disparity index and they looked at the rates of preterm births among racial and ethnic groups in Nebraska. And based on that they gave us not only a disparity index, but also a state ranking.”
The March of Dimes looked at premature birth rates in Douglas, Lancaster, Sarpy, Hall, Buffalo and Scottsbluff Counties.
Larsen says the report indicates there is more work to be done to ensure equity in all parts of the population when it comes to access to healthcare and contact with physicians.