Life Expectancy in Brooklyn By Neighborhood: Who Dies First?

A sprawling and explosive new set of “community health profiles” released by the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene (DOMHH) breaks down Brooklyn residents’ average life expectancy, neighborhood by neighborhood. (Or, technically, community district by community district.)

They’re pretty morbid, on multiple levels.

The reports show that, in general, residents in the majority white and Asian neighborhoods of southern Brooklyn are expected to live the longest.

By contrast, residents in the majority black neighborhoods of central and eastern Brooklyn are expected to die soonest.

And residents in the mixed (yet rapidly gentrifying) neighborhoods of northern and western Brooklyn generally fall somewhere in the middle.

There are a few exceptions. Residents in majority black East Flatbush, for example, are expected to live a good two years longer than majority white Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents.

But in general, life expectancy in Brooklyn is scaled along racial divides.

Here’s how long you and your neighbors are expected to live, according to the DOMHH.

• Borough Park (PDF): 83.5 years

• Bensonhurst (PDF): 82.5 years

• Sheepshead Bay (PDF): 82.5 years

• East Flatbush (PDF): 82.1 years

• Sunset Park (PDF): 81.6 years

• Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights (PDF): 81.5 years

• Flatbush and Midwood (PDF): 81.5 years

• Flatlands and Canarsie (PDF): 81.3 years

• Park Slope and Carroll Gardens (PDF): 80.3 years

• Greenpoint and Williamsburg (PDF): 80.2 years

• South Crown Heights and Lefferts Gardens (PDF): 80 years

• Coney Island (PDF): 79.7 years

• Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights (PDF): 79.4 years

• Bushwick (PDF): 78.8 years

• East New York and Starrett City (PDF): 77.7 years

• Crown Heights and Prospect Heights (PDF): 77.5 years

• Bedford-Stuyvesant (PDF): 75.1 years

• Brownsville (PDF): 74.1 years

“This is unfair and avoidable,” NYC Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said of the results. “A person’s health should not be determined by his or her ZIP code.”

Aside from life expectancy, the new DOHMM profiles contain gobs of useful information about each of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods, including supermarket square footage, pollution levels and access to health care — so be sure to check yours out.

City health officials’ hope, Bassett said, is that ”you will use the data and information in these Community Health Profiles to advocate for your neighborhoods.”