The Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee voted to add infant mortality to the list of priorities in its strategic plan at a meeting Tuesday, January 7, 2020.

The Finance Committee is responsible for updating the strategic plan. Councilman Ron Salem made the suggestion. The committee agreed to add an item to their three-year goals to reduce infant mortality by a percentage to be determined later.

CEO Faye Johnson spoke at the meeting about the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition’s efforts to reduce infant mortality and address the social determinants of health that impact birth outcomes, including the results and recommendations from the Fetal & Infant Mortality Review of all infant deaths from 2018. Baptist Health, Florida Blue and UF Health Jacksonville are key partners in the review and strategy development.

For more information, read the Florida Times-Union’s editorial from January 12th, “Searching for Hope.”