Healthy Beginnings Healthy Families: Infant Health

Established in 2023, Healthy Beginnings, Healthy Families Act creates opportunities for the state to address infant mortality. This work aims to build equitable, inclusive, and culturally and linguistically responsive systems that ensure the health and well-being of young children and their families by establishing the Minnesota Partnership to Prevent Infant Mortality, and funding statewide grants to improve infant health outcomes.

Minnesota Partnership to Prevent Infant Mortality

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) leads the establishment of the Minnesota partnership to prevent infant mortality program. This statewide partnership program’s goal will be to engage communities, exchange best practices, share summary data on infant health, and promote policies to improve birth outcomes and eliminate infant mortality. This partnership: 

• Includes state government, local public health agencies, Tribes, private sector, and community nonprofit organizations with the shared goal of decreasing infant mortality rates among populations with significant disparities, including among Black, American Indian, other nonwhite communities, and rural populations
• Addresses the leading causes of poor infant health outcomes such as preterm births, infant sleep-related deaths, and congenital anomalies through strategies to change social and environmental determinants of health.
• Promotes the development, availability, and use of data-informed, community-driven strategies to improve infant health outcomes.

Statute and Rules

Revisor: Statute 145.9573 Minnesota Partnership to Prevent Infant Mortality 

Infant Health Grants

The Maternal and Child Health Section released multiple funding opportunities for partners statewide to address infant health outcomes through state funded projects.