Doctors. The internet. We don’t need an entire apparatus to explain basic facts that can be a document sent via text message to new mothers in the hospital. The amount of useless busywork is absurd
I'm not sure how many new mothers are taking the time to go through every unsolicited text they get. The majority of people consider printed media more trustworthy then online media [1] (I probably wouldn't click on a text message link with a headline about my newborn vs. a pamphlet provided by the hospital). There seems to be strong evidence that the "entire apparatus" did in fact work and was not superseded by text messages. I agree that there is a lot of useless busy work, but I don't think these cancellations are the way to address it
* hyperbolic
There are often complex social issues that don't have easy technological solutions, and you might not understand what these issues are if you don't have that background.
I see a lot of arrogance from the tech industry - there are a lot of people who think they know all the answers, but they've made faulty assumptions about what the problems are, and they don't really have the curiosity or the experience to know better.
After birth, when new parents are sleep deprived, is a uniquely stressful time when parents are bombarded with information. Advice on the Internet is prolific and often wrong, raising anxiety without providing needed context-sensitive guidance. It looks like this program was providing trustworthy materials and outreach to reduce infant death.
> Safe to Sleep created the public health messaging for this information and distributed it on social media, as well as in pamphlets targeted to specific groups, such as grandparents, and translated it into different languages. It also provided the materials to hospitals and doctor's offices to be handed out to patients.
Your proposed solution doesnt cover what this did. How would you classify this as busywork, if the end result can prevent infant deaths? This is a net loss to society if it gets shuttered entirely.