Dallas County has received more federal support to address racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes.
Dallas County Health and Human Services is getting more than $300,000 in additional funding for its Healthy Start program, which provides prenatal, maternal, postpartum and infant care – with the goal of improving health outcomes for both pregnant people and infants.
DCHSS director Dr. Philip Huang said the funding will help expand what the county offers.
"We'll be doing more educational classes, some of these home visits and assessing what are ways that we can support optimal maternal and child health,” Huang said.
In Texas, Black pregnant people are twice as likely to die than their white counterparts, according to state data. And in Dallas, Black infants are more likely to be born premature or at a low birth weight than babies of all other races.
Huang said infant and maternal mortality and morbidity are “very preventable” when people have resources available to them.
The funding will be directed towards areas of the county with higher mortality rates, like South Dallas.
“When we applied for the funding, we needed to document that there were ... high infant mortality rate problems in some of these areas,” Huang said.
DCHHS took a data-driven approach to determine different zip codes to focus on. It also collaborated with Parkland Health, Dallas County’s public hospital, to ensure the organizations don’t overlap in their efforts.
Federally funded programs, like Healthy Start, are vital to the county’s ability to provide services and programs, according to Huang.
The county received a total of more than $1 million in Healthy Start funding in fiscal year 2025. Huang said the continuation of federal funding streams is critical.
“We’re very dependent on them,” Huang said. “The whole community is dependent on them to do really important programs like this.”
The county doesn’t have control over the continuation of federal funding, but Huang said the department is trying to do everything it can with the funding it does have.
Abigail Ruhman is KERA’s health reporter. Got a tip? Email Abigail at aruhman@kera.org.
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