Georgia Safe Infant Sleep program (GASIS) will support partnerships that work to strengthen Georgia’s capacity to inform and address public health for pregnant and postpartum people, their infants, and people with birth defects, infant disorders and related conditions through the Case Registry. As such, the work proposed herein will enhance data collection and translation; support development and dissemination of resources and best practices; build organizational and community capacity to promote adoption of public health recommendations and interventions; and establish collaborative clinical, public health and community-based network(s) across Georgia.
Component A will identify, review, categorize SUID, enter data, conduct quality assurance
protocols, analyze and disseminate data across GA. Initial focus will be in the two of the most populous counties in GA and home to the State Capitol of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb County. DeKalb County will follow the same protocols as Fulton County but will also be piloting an established external web-based data collection site hosted through MDI-log to ascertain whether it is beneficial to capturing timely and accurate SUID data.
Component C will implement community participatory, data-driven SUID prevention
strategies that align with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations on improving practices related to safe sleep, addressing social determinants of health, and promoting health through a health equity lens to reduce infant deaths in the sleep environment among disproportionately impacted communities.
Across the United States, approximately 3,500 infants die from sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID). Between 1990-1998 SUID rates declined by 45%, after implementation of the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that infants be placed on their backs to sleep through the Back to Sleep/Safe to Sleep campaign led by the National Institutes of Health. Since this time, the SUID rate has declined less than 10% and the prevalence of back to sleep position has plateaued. There are three common types of SUID: 1) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), 2) Unknown causes, and 3) Accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed. In 2020, SIDS accounted for 1,389 deaths (41%), unknown cause accounted for 1,062 deaths (32%), and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed accounted for 905 deaths (27%). In Georgia, the 2020 SUID rate was 127.9 per 100,000 live births, higher than the US. rate of 92.9 (CDC, 20).