Overall Death Rate Of Children Drops In Tennessee

The overall death rate for Tennessee children dropped by 20 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to information released this week by the State Child Fatality Review team. Notable factors in that reduction are a decrease in sleep-related infant deaths due to suffocation or strangulation, which were down 16.8 percent from 2010 to 2011, and a 20 percent drop in deaths of black children between 2007 and 2011.
In 13 categories of fatalities measured in the report, Tennessee was identified as improving in 10 and stable in three. The reduction in total children deaths from five years ago represents a difference of 189 lives, the equivalent of more than nine Kindergarten classrooms of children.
These numbers are included in an annual report compiled by the Tennessee Department of Health and provided to Governor Bill Haslam and the Tennessee General Assembly. A total of 31 interdisciplinary teams comprised of more than 600 Tennesseans representing 31 judicial districts participated in the annual local child fatality review teams’ work in 2011. Team members, who serve without pay, follow a process developed by the National Maternal and Child Health Center and conducted a robust review of 802 deaths of children 17 years of age or younger.
The data gathered by the teams is submitted to the State Child Fatality Review team, a group of elected officials, commissioners and other policy makers authorized by the Child Fatality Review and Prevention Act of 1995.
Of the 802 deaths meeting review criteria for the 2011 report, only three were not completed due to a lack of pending contributing information, such as autopsy results or legal investigations.