Release
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University released the first report to detail health measures at the neighborhood level in Philadelphia. While other reports show health indicators for cities and counties across the nation, Close to Home: The Health of Philadelphia’s Neighborhoods is the first project to do something similar for Philadelphia’s 46 neighborhoods. The report shows that while national ranking reports find Philadelphia lagging other large cities in health, these poor health indicators are not evenly found within Philadelphia. Just a few miles in the city can change a person’s life expectancy by nearly twenty years. The report can be found on the Health Department’s website, and in a specially designed website.
WHYY
The big takeaway: Residents in low-income zip codes aren’t as healthy as residents of wealthier ones. They don’t live as long and have higher rates of diabetes, cancer, and asthma.
“It’s pretty dramatic,” said Raynard Washington, chief epidemiologist with Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health, which authored the study with help from researchers at Drexel University.
https://whyy.org/articles/philly-health-gap-varies-by-neighborhood-health-department-finds/
By Aaron Moselle
CBS3
“The Close to Home report puts into stark relief something that we’ve known for a while: there are too many neighborhoods in Philadelphia that make good health difficult to achieve,” Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said.
By Staff
PhillyVoice
These facts spurred the Philadelphia Department of Health and Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University to compile a report — the first ever — to outline the health of Philadelphia on the neighborhood level, dubbed “Close to Home: The Health of Philadelphia’s Neighborhoods.” These findings provide key insights into community health and serve as a helpful tool in monitoring and improving health.
https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-health-department-neighborhood-ranking/
By Bailey King
KYW
Philadelphia’s health significantly lags behind other major cities, according to its Close to Home report, which evaluated each of city’s 46 neighborhoods.
“Neighborhoods in Center City of course were at the top of the list, and then other neighborhoods in areas like Kensington and parts of North Philly like Nicetown and Tioga, outcomes were not as good,” explained Dr. Raynard Washington with Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health.
By Justin Udo
Technically Philly
Washington said a large portion of time was dedicated to drawing neighborhood boundaries in order to evaluate the data.
“A lot of this was really the recognition that people think [of Philadelphia] in terms of neighborhoods,” Washington said. “So having our health reporting be able to align with neighborhoods makes sense.”
By Michaela Althouse
The Collected Works of Jim Garrow 