Cincinnati’s annual seasonal art celebration, Summerfair, returns for the 45th year at Coney Island this weekend. The festival includes 300 crafters and fine artists from around town, the country and Canada as well as performers and food vendors. Peruse photography, glass and wood works, ceramics, fiber arts and more as you explore one of the longest running arts and crafts fairs in the nation. Admission is $10 (parking included). Summerfair runs, rain or shine, 2-8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Tonight at Coney’s Moonlite gardens, Cincy Chic presents the Little Black Dress party and fashion show. Summerfair’s artworks get a fierce makeover at this event, which also features drinks and dancing from 7-11 p.m. Tickets are $15. Freestyle rap battle-meets-Draw Something: that’s how Ghost Empire Collective describes its Art of War show tonight. In the largest GEC event yet, seven artists from the collective will compete in a live art tournament. An MC will randomly select a card with a word on it for each artist, who will have 10 minutes to draw their subject (none of the artists have any idea what mystery subjects appear on the cards). Once their time is up, the audience will vote via applause for their favorites. The fun will continue until one artist remains. The Art of War goes down at The Avenue Lounge in Covington. Admission is free; the show begins at 10 p.m. Bike month is over, y’all and there are some new two-wheelers in town. The inaugural Queen City Mods & Rockers Rally celebrates scooters (mods) and motorcyclists (rockers) with a group ride and celebration Saturday. The ride kicks off at noon at Fuel Coffee in the East End, where scooters and bikes will split up for two different scenic routes and eventually meet in Rabbit Hash, then back north to Hoffner Park in Northside around 3 p.m. The rally at the park (2-8 p.m.) will feature grub, live music, art, and lots of car-less fun. Heat things up with a retro fashion show and pinup girl contest, hosted by the Cincinnati Rollergirls. Afterwards, the group will migrate to The Comet from 9-11 p.m. Find registration, a full route and schedule here. You don’t have to brave the city’s core to have fun this weekend, though. St. James Orthodox Christian Church in Loveland presents its annual Mediterranean Food Festival through Sunday. Enjoy Middle Eastern music, belly dancers, rides and games for kids and more authentic food you than can throw a falafel at! Have your fill of kibbeh, grape leaves, shawarma, gyros and more, 5-11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and 1-10 p.m. Sunday. Always clever with a theme, Dance_MF embraces June’s National Safety Month status for its monthly event Saturday. Strap on your neon safety suit and boogie down to Northside Tavern from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. You can dance if you want to…This weekend is a great chance to check out some Fringe Festival performances. Go here for show reviews, schedules, ticket information and more.

Cincinnati babies don't get the same chance at seeing their first birthday as do infants in other states across the country, and area health professionals believe it's time to become more proactive about it. On Wednesday, Noble Maseru, Cincinnati health commissioner, and Dr. Elizabeth Kelly, a maternal-infant health specialist at University Hospital, presented statistics to City Council in support of expanding city-wide efforts to reduce infant mortality rates (IMRs) and reconsider infant care and public health strategies. Infant mortality rates are typically measured by the number of deaths of babies under one year of age per 1,000 live births. Statistics show that the overall IMR rate in counties across Cincinnati from 2006-2010 was 13.3. In 2010, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 6.8 —  just a little more than half of Cincinnati's alarming statistic. According to the City of Cincinnati Health Department, infant mortality rates are currently the highest in the 45202 zip code; the rate between 2007-2009 was 24.2. Other Hamilton County zip codes with high IMRs include 45203 (20.1), 45229 (17.5), 45214 (19.2) and others. Zip codes with the lowest rates included 45218 (0), 45226 (0), 45248 (3.7) and others. Click here to access a complete map with data for all Cincinnati zip codes. Pinpointing causes for discrepancies in IMRs is difficult, but the following are common causes of death in infants under one year old, according to the Ohio Department of Health: • Prematurity/low birth weight (prematurity is the No. 1 cause of infant death) • Congenital anomalies• Sudden infant death syndromeThese abnormalities are distributed differently across demographics, especially varying across race brackets. According to Maseru, the key to reducing rates locally is uniting area hospitals in an effort to provide a comprehensive continuum of care, beginning with monitoring prenatal development and spanning across the delivery experience into post-partum care. That continuum should encompass post-partum home visits, psycho-social counseling and education on nutritional support, domestic violence, etc., especially focusing on families in "high-risk" zip codes.  For the past several years, the Cincinnati Health Department has teamed up with University Hospital for  the Maternal/Infant Health Improvement Project, a partnership uses that continuum of care to meld public health strategies and medical expertise to reduce IMR rates in University Hospital, and according to the data presented to the Rules and Governance Committee on Wednesday, the system is working. Maseru says that over the five-year span from 2006-2010, the Health Department/University Hospital partnership yielded a 10.6 IMR rate, which marks about a 20 percent difference from Cincinnati's overall rate.  The next effort, Maseru says, will be expanding that partnership into a network that applies the strategies the Improvement Project has been using to other local area hospitals, such as Good Samaritan and Christ Hospital, who account for 85 percent of Cincinnati deliveries annually. "It's all about achieving health equity," says Maseru. He hopes a successful parternship could bring IMR rates across every Cincinnati zip code down to single digits by 2014.