Brooklynites Drink; Bronx Has Asthma, Report Finds
Our city is getting healthier, but there are still large differences among neighborhoods
By VICTORIA CAVALIERE
Updated 4:18 PM EST, Mon, Jan 26, 2009
What does your zip code say about your drinking habits? How fat or fit is your neighborhood? Where are you more likely to fear an intimate partner? The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has some answers in its annual “Community Health Profile.”
According to the health department, newly released data shows that our City is getting healthier, but there are still large differences among neighborhoods.
For example, if you live in downtown Manhattan or around 11217 -- parts of downtown Brooklyn including Fort Greene, Boerum Hill and Park Slope -- you are far more likely to binge drink than if you live in Flatbush or Bay Ridge or Central Harlem.
Watch out for syphilis in Chelsea, where 67 of 100,000 residents is infected. Compare that to 8 out of 100,000 around the rest of the city.
As far as smoking goes, Staten Island is one big tobacco shop, the data indicates. Long Island City and Astoria also boasts a fair amount of smokers, as does Chelsea and Greenwich Village. But out in southeast Queens, or Canarsie, some 70-percent of the population reportedly never smokes.
As for asthma, it’s little surprise that the South Bronx has some of the highest figures – something health officials blame on traffic and waste pollution. You’ll breathe easier if you’re a resident of the Upper East Side or Gramercy or if you live in West Queens. Upper East Siders are also far more likely to exercise than the city -- or national -- average, the data finds.
If you have a child in SoHo, there's a real risk of lead poisoning. Childhood lead poisoning occurs in 35 of every 1,000 kids in the 10012 ZIP code.
Up in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, diabetes rates stand at 16 percent -- twice as much as the citywide average.
First Published: Jan 12, 2009 1:49 PM EST
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