DATE: Thursday, October 2, 1997             TAG: 9710020529

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAT DOOLEY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   40 lines

PORTSMOUTH, NORFOLK GET GRANTS TO CURB TEEN PREGNANCY

Portsmouth and Norfolk will be among six Virginia communities sharing in a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help reduce rates of infant mortality, teen pregnancy and low birth-weight babies.

Under an initiative dubbed Healthy Start, the federal government will distribute $50 million to 40 communities across the nation, it was announced this week.

Also to share in Virginia's Healthy Start funds will be Petersburg, Mecklenburg County, Westmoreland County and Clifton Forge/-Covington, said Janice Hicks, a policy analyst with the Virginia Department of Health.

The communities have been identified as having high rates of infant mortality, teen pregnancy and low birth-weight babies compared with the rest of the state and the nation, Hicks said.

In 1994, for example, the infant mortality rate in Norfolk was 12.8 per 1,000 births, compared with 8.2 statewide, the health department reports. In Portsmouth, it was 15.4.

Also that year, teens gave birth to 17.6 percent of Norfolk's babies, and 21.3 percent of Portsmouth's. Across Virginia, 11.3 percent of new mothers were teens.

Low weight occurred in 10.3 percent of Norfolk's newborns and 11.7 percent of Portsmouth's, compared with 7.6 percent statewide.

Low birth-weight babies are 40 times more likely to die within the first four weeks of life, and they also are at risk for a variety of health problems, such as cerebral palsy and asthma, Hicks said.

Teens are twice as likely to deliver low birth-weight babies as are older women, she said.

The grant will be used to further intervention and education efforts, Hicks said. Those efforts will be coordinated, in part, through the Center for Pediatric Research at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Norfolk State University.

The grants raise to 60 the number of Healthy Start communities nationwide. KEYWORDS: GRANT INFANT MORTALITY TEEN PREGNANCY

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu