FLORENCE — A report shows that several positive strides during the last four years were offset by a few stumbling blocks in the effort to reduce infant mortality throughout several counties in the Pee Dee.

That was the synopsis of an evaluation conducted for Pee Dee Healthy Start and presented to its members Monday. The surveyed areas included Darlington, Marion, Williamsburg and Chesterfield counties.

Blacks comprise most of the project area, which were identified to suffer from a combination of high unemployment, low education attainment and a high rate of poverty, according to the study which was conducted from January 2002 to this past January.

Health education was one of the bright spots, which demonstrated a 14.9 percent increase in terms of the number of prenatal clients that went from pretest to posttest. There also was a 13.3 percent boost in those postpartum clients from pretest to posttest.

Outreach was also up from 1,431 participants in 2001 to almost 2,500 last year. Interconceptional care, along with screening for perinatal depression, also has shown strides.

Funding was identified as the chief cause for concern, along with a lack of adequate transportation services. The latter especially has been compounded by rising fuel prices mingled with the need to cover, in some cases, large geographical distances to provide services.

In the final analysis, the pros do outweigh the cons, said evaluator Jeffrey Guidry, associate professor with the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University.

“The cons come in with a lot of things you can’t control — funding and resources within the community,” he said. “Overall, the pros outweigh the cons because we are making a difference. But it hasn’t been easy.”

The biggest challenges during the next four years, Guidry said, will involve adequate staffing and outreach efforts in the communities to a potential client base that is growing.

“We are making a difference, but remember that we’re just one of many entities that should be involved,” he said. “And the numbers are increasing.”

Madie Robinson, executive director of Pee Dee Healthy Start, said she was fairly pleased with the results. She also acknowledged that there are strides yet to be made in reducing the large disparity in infant mortality among blacks.

“Given the resources that we have, and the challenges that we’ve had over the last four years, we’re moving in the right direction,” she said. “I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished.”