Over the past year, Indiana’s governor, Republican Mike Pence, has spoken frequently about a persistent public health issue: a higher-than-average infant mortality rate.

The state logs 7.7 infant deaths per 1,000 births, compared with the national rate of 7 deaths per 1,000 births. Several factors may contribute to this — about 17 percent of women living in Indiana smoke while pregnant, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. Some women lack the education to provide proper nutrition for their babies.

Pence’s staff suspected that the solution to Indiana’s infant mortality problem lay hidden in the state’s records, stored in disparate data sets throughout various government agencies. Analyzing these data sets — pairing causes of death from the Department of Health with socioeconomic data from the Family and Social Services Administration, for instance — could help the state determine which preventative programs to fund, they surmised.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com