Bronx Ranked NY's Sickest County, Massive Disparity Seen In City

NEW YORK – What a difference just a few feet make. People living in The Bronx have been found to be the unhealthiest in the whole of New York State while, just across the Harlem River, Manhattan has some of the area's fittest residents.

The startling difference was found by County Health Rankings which publishes an annual report looking at the state of health in counties across the country.

The Bronx came in last out of 62 counties in several categories, including quality of life for its residents, heath factors, the availability of clinical care, social and economic factors and the physical environment.

The county ranked 35th in the state for the length of life a resident is expected to have, with people living to an average of 80.4 years. Manhattan, on the other hand, came in at number one for the age people will live to – 84.5 years.

In the whole state, New York County was fifth healthiest. It was 30th for quality of life, sixth for health behaviors such as abstaining from smoking and unhealthy eating, fourth for quality of clinical care, 31st for social and economic factors and 52nd for the quality of the physical environment.

Queens ranked number eight in the state, with Brooklyn coming in 17th and Staten Island 28th.

County Health Rankings is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute. The rankings look at a variety of measures that impact a community’s health, including high school graduation rates and access to healthy foods. Rates for smoking, obesity and teen births are also studied.

This year, the program looked closely at the effect housing costs have on a person’s health. The researchers found that 11 percent of households nationwide spend more than half their income on housing. That means people often don’t have the money for high-quality food or access to health care. It can also mean having trouble securing transportation to get to work or school.

The housing cost burden, which is “substantially higher” among renters than owners, is closely tied to things like high rates of poverty, food insecurity and self-rated poor health.

“We know there’s a severe housing cost burden that is a national issue,” Justin Rivas, a network strategist with County Health Rankings, told Patch. “When families spend more than 50 percent of their income on their housing, whether it’s rent or mortgage, it leaves less money and opportunities to pursue health.”

It’s easier to get a quality education when you live close to good schools. It’s easier to earn a living wage when you live near well-paying jobs. It’s easier to eat healthy when you live near grocery stores with affordable, nutritious food. And it’s easier to keep active when you live near green spaces and parks, the report said.

But there are large, persistent gaps and disparities in healthy outcomes, particularly along racial lines. That stuck out to Rivas this year. And those gaps are linked to issues like housing.

While about 11 percent of households nationwide are burdened by severe housing costs, that number is about 25 percent for black households, Rivas said. For Latino households, it’s about 16 percent.

“These kinds of large gaps do exist,” said Rivas. “And data around the issue of housing can help us lead to maybe closing some gaps in terms of opportunity and communities.”

County Health Rankings offers hundreds of scientifically-backed strategies to improve health factors, including income, housing, transit, employment and diet and exercise.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.