The infant mortality rate, or the probability that a child will not live to their first birthday, and maternal mortality rate are widely accepted indicators of population health and wellbeing. A greater proportion of people die from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes in the United States than any other high-income country in the world. Despite significant efforts, perinatal health outcomes continue to worsen in the United States and Black and Indigenous communities face a significant, disparate, burden of inequity. Tragically, two-thirds of pregnancy-related deaths in the US are preventable. Globally, community-led efforts are emerging as bright spots for advancing child health and reducing birth inequities. Structural inequities are a root cause of disparate health outcomes and are associated with increases in mortality and morbidity and reduced overall health and wellbeing. This presentation will unpack patterns and divergences in child health inequities in the international context and share lessons from community-led systems transformation efforts and emerging evidence of their role in addressing health inequities and enabling environments where children and families can flourish.

Renée Boynton-Jarrett, a pediatrician and social epidemiologist, is an associate professor at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. She is the founding executive director of the Vital Village Networks. Vital Village uses a trauma-informed lens to improve community capacity to promote child wellbeing and advance equity through dedicated collaborative partnerships, research, data-sharing, and community leadership development in Boston and nationally through the NOW Forum and CRADLE Lab. Her scholarship has focused on early-life adversities as life course social determinants of health. She has a specific concentration on psychosocial stress and neuroendocrine and reproductive health outcomes, including obesity, puberty, and fertility. She is nationally recognized for work on the intersection of community violence, intimate partner violence, and child abuse and neglect and neighborhood characteristics that influence these patterns. She has received numerous awards for teaching, clinical care, and public health including the Massachusetts Public Health Association Paul Revere Award for outstanding impact on public health. She received her AB from Princeton University, her MD from Yale School of Medicine, and ScD in Social Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, and completed residency in Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Lunch will be served starting at 11:30am.