Black infant mortality rate in the city was 14 deaths per 1,000 births in 2025 — three and a half times higher than the city’s white infant mortality rate, according to the Onondaga County Health Department
By Mary Beth Roach
The Onondaga County Health Department has released its 2025 Community Health Assessment report and according to a recent article in Syracuse.com, one of the findings indicated that from 2022 to 2024, the city’s Black infant mortality rate was 14 deaths per 1,000 births. This is three and a half times higher than the city’s white infant mortality rate.
We talked with Rebecca Shultz, deputy commissioner for the Onondaga County Health Department, about this issue.
Q: How were these numbers ascertained?
A: We are able to look at data from vital statistics, so we access both birth certificates and death certificates for that information.
Q: How do these numbers compare with the national statistics?
A: We do tend to see disparities nationally as well. But nationally it does tend to be a little bit more apparent in some of the more heavily populated areas. A more apt comparison might be if you were looking at the Onondaga County rate rather than the Syracuse rate.
Q: How does that compare with the county?
A: Looking at the county as a whole, the rate for infant mortality deaths is smaller.
Q: What factors might be driving these numbers?
A: There’s certainly a lot of different factors that go into it. I think that one of the things that we look at is access to care, making sure we’re reaching people and providing the necessary wraparound services that they need during that time of pregnancy and birth and postpartum. It’s certainly, I think, a matter of reaching people with information and making sure that they’re able to access what they need without any significant barriers.
Q: In the story in Syracuse.com, you mentioned that measures need to be put in place. What do you think some of those might be?
A: We do have a lot of really strong community partners in Onondaga County. Our birth hospitals are very experienced and have a lot of resources to offer. What we’re working towards right now is strengthening the connections between those systems so that it’s a more seamless process on the side of the client or the patients so that they can access services from different aspects of the community, whether it’s our healthy families program, WIC programs that might be offered by other community-based agencies or other healthcare providers. Our current efforts are to make that process much more seamless on the side of the individual.
Q: Have any of these measures been implemented yet?
A: We’re always talking with community partners. We have a lot of meetings and access touchpoints where we talk about what we’re seeing out in the community where we’re speaking with clients themselves and getting information and using that in an ongoing way to improve the system for everybody. Having that open communication and making sure that we’re seeking feedback from the people that we’re looking to serve has been critical.
Q: In doing this report, did anything jump surprise you?
A: I do think having this information documented in the Community Health Assessment is important for everyone because it allows us to really look at the different factors that might be impacting the health of our community and that includes social determinants of health and other factors that can affect someone’s ability to be healthy long before pregnancy even begins. I think one of the things that we hope with this document is that other community members and community agencies can look at it and think to themselves ‘how can we plug into this effort?’; ‘how can we work together and collaborate as a community, as a county, to improve health outcomes?’
Q: What can the local healthcare community or the general public do to help?
A: I think that one of the most important things, as we look at the data over time and talk to people who are having touchpoints within the system, is just access, making sure that folks can get appointments, making sure that they have transportation. If a provider has a client that doesn’t have transportation, there are resources available in the community for that. Really knowing your community, knowing what’s out there and how to access those services and resources is important. And certainly, at the health department, we try to maintain a pretty comprehensive sense of what’s available. If any providers or any other community members had questions about services and resources, they could reach out and we would be happy to share information.
Q: What is the best way for them to reach out to you?
A: They can contact our Community Health Division at 315-435-3280. Depending on the question, they can be routed to the right program or department.
Q: How will you measure the effectiveness of the programs?
A: There’s a lot of different ways to look at outcomes. Obviously, our overarching goal is to improve birth outcomes for families in our community. But there are other measures we can look at earlier on in the process. For example, how many families received a referral for some type of services, what percent of those referrals were kept and what percent of those families were engaged. We can look at a lot of the processes along the way and tweak those if we see that we want to identify additional improvements. We’re always looking at this from a quality improvement standpoint and continually assessing whether our efforts are having the greatest impact and making adjustments as necessary.