The Sentinel and Enterprise followed up their coverage of the “shocking” rise in teen pregnancies with an editorial in today’s paper decrying the problem and presenting absolutely nothing new or innovative as a response to deal with it. Fair enough; since I don’t read their editorial page in hopes of being enlightened I can’t say I’m disappointed.
But I am disappointed in a couple of things. First, the Sentinel has completely overlooked a real crisis in
the report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health which provides the basis for the articles: Leominster had the highest infant mortality rate in the state among cities and towns with over 500 births in 2006. And secondly, the editorial writer at the Sentinel is so lazy that he or she couldn’t be bothered to at least rewrite Sunday’s article when including the statistics presented in the first piece.
Addressing the second point first…is it that hard to present old information in a new fashion, when using it in an article or editorial for the second time in four days? Here is what was written in reporter
Kate Czaplinski’s piece on Sunday:
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health listed Leominster and Fitchburg in the top 25 highest cities for teen births.
Fitchburg, number 7 on the list, saw a 47 percent increase in its teen birth rate from 2005 to 2006.
This indicates that for every 1,000 female teenagers between the age of 15 to 19, 58.2 had babies.
Leominster, number 20 on the list, saw a shocking 73 percent increase in teen births. The number for 2006 totals 30.3 women per 1,000 having babies.
Here is the relevant portion of
today’s editorial:
…The Massachusetts Department of Public Health listed Leominster and Fitchburg in the top 25 highest cities for teen births.
Fitchburg, number 7 on the list, saw a 47 percent increase in its teen birth rate from 2005 to 2006.
This indicates that for every 1,000 female teenagers between the age of 15 to 19, 58.2 had babies.
Leominster, number 20 on the list, saw a shocking 73 percent increase in teen births. The number for 2006 totals 30.3 women per 1,000 having babies.
Honestly. Can you at least try? Perhaps the editors correctly assume that the readers of the Sentinel and Enterprise are lucky to remember anything printed in it from day to day (never mind items printed in different sections), so it really doesn’t matter that much.
But what does matter is the breathless reporting on a crisis that really isn’t that much of a crisis. As I mentioned in my previous post, Leominster is one of the top two cities in the state in reducing teen pregnancy. That’s not the problem. The problem is that babies born to Leominster residents are dying at a higher rate than any other city.
The DPH report cited in the Sentinel article also lists infant deaths. According to the report, there were 532 births to Leominster residents and 14 deaths of children at birth or before their first birthday. Using those numbers, the infant mortality rate was 2.63%, nearly twice the statewide rate of 1.33%. Of the 35 cities and towns in Massachusetts reporting more than 500 births, none had a higher death rate. Here are the 10 worst:
Births Deaths Rate
Leominster 532 14 2.63%
Revere 686 18* 2.62%
Marlborough 569 14* 2.46%
Holyoke 656 16* 2.44%
Taunton 784 18 2.30%
Malden 843 18 2.14%
Springfield 2,523 53 2.10%
Everett 640 13 2.03%
Haverhill 904 18 1.99%
New Bedford 1,460 29 1.99%
Fitchburg would be 19th on the list with a death rate of 1.44%, marginally higher than the state average.
Looking further into the demographics, the closest match to Leominster among the 35 cities and towns in Massachusetts reporting more than 500 births is Salem (in many ways, the cities are remarkably similar). Both had around 530 births in 2006,
both have a population of around 43,000, both have a median income around $54,000,
both are between 85 and 87% white, both around 3% black, and both 11% Hispanic. Yet, the one area where the similarities diverge is in their infant death rate. In Salem, only half as many babies died as in Leominster:
Births Deaths Rate
Leominster 532 14 2.63%
Salem 523 7* 1.34%
If the Sentinel is looking for a real shocker, this is where they should be investigating. Why does Leominster have the highest rate of infant death in Massachusetts? Why is it twice that of another city with nearly the exact demographic profile? What is happening in Salem to protect newborns that is missing in Leominster?
That’s where the Sentinel should be looking, not trying to drum up a sensational story where there is none. That, and an editorial writer without copy and paste.
*The DPH does not report an exact number of fetal deaths if the count is between 1 and 4, presumably for privacy reasons. Where the number was unreported, I arbitrarily chose to include 3 fetal deaths. The actual number may be between -2 and +1 different from this estimate (i.e. the actual number of infant deaths in Revere is between 16 and 19).Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Teen Pregnancy Infant Deaths Sentinel and Enterprise
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