Developing a standard approach to examine infant mortality: findings from the State Infant Mortality Collaborative (SIMC).

States can improve pregnancy outcomes by using a standard approach to assess infant mortality. The State Infant Mortality Collaborative (SIMC) developed a series of analyses to describe infant mortality in states, identify contributing factors to infant death, and develop the evidence base for implementing new or modifying existing programs and policies addressing infant mortality. The SIMC was conducted between 2004 and 2006 among five states: Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. States used analytic strategies in an iterative process to investigate contributors to infant mortality. Analyses were conducted within three domains: data reporting (quality, reporting, definitional criteria, and timeliness), cause and timing of infant death (classification of cause and fetal, neonatal, and postneonatal timing), and maturity and weight at birth/maturity and birth weight-specific mortality. All states identified the SIMC analyses as useful for examining infant mortality trends. In each of the three domains, SIMC results were used to identify important direct contributors to infant mortality including disparities, design or implement interventions to reduce infant death, and identify foci for additional analyses. While each state has unique structural, political, and programmatic circumstances, the SIMC model provides a systematic approach to investigating increasing or static infant mortality rates that can be easily replicated in all other states and allows for cross-state comparison of results.