Finding the first step: creating a stillbirth scorecard for the United States


Lindsey J Wimmer, CPNP, CPLC

Star Legacy Foundation

Stillbirth is a significant public health issue in the United States, accounting for 24,000 deaths every year. An estimated one-fourth of all stillbirths in high-income countries worldwide occur in the US. Unfortunately, the US lags significantly behind other high-resource nations in reducing stillbirth rates. Additionally, there are not any federally-funded or national professional organizations focused on stillbirth prevention opportunities. The lack of awareness, understanding of the issues, and evidence-based interventions impede progress.

Star Legacy Foundation is a non-profit organization based in the United States and is dedicated to improvements in stillbirth prevention and care. In an effort to expand awareness and understanding of stillbirth issues in the United States, this organization created a national and state-based score card system that will help health professionals, policy makers, and advocates better understand the nature of this crisis and where efforts should begin to address it. Description of the development process along with criteria used for evaluation will provide insight into the status of stillbirth in the United States, both among the individual states and compared to international colleagues.

The first steps to improvement include acknowledgement and understanding of the problem. This scorecard program aims to ensure key influencers within the United States have access to in-depth information as well as strategies for future research initiatives. When the United States is able to meet the current stillbirth rates and reduction rates as the top-performing countries, there will be a significant decrease in the number of stillbirths occurring in high-resources settings worldwide.

Ethics statement
Ethics approval not necessary for this project


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