Dr. Linda Rae Murray, Chief Medical Officer for the Cook County Deparment of Public Health, asked me to think about the department as though I was a plant. Two plants, she said, can get the same amount of sunlight and the same amount of rain, but if one is growing in nutrient-rich soil and the other is growing in poor soil, they’re not going to grow the same.

Place Matters: Cook County is a study recently published by the Health Policy Institute aimed at discerning which neighborhoods would be the rich soil in this metaphor and which would be nutrient-poor. It’s the first study of its kind, according to Dr. Murray, that goes into such a small gradient with this data. What they found is that in some neighborhoods in Cook County, where you live can take up to as many as ten years off of your life.

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The central finding of Place Matters: Cook County — that segregation leads to poverty which leads to poor health which shortens life spans — is probably not surprising to anyone. The study is an essential tool for those advocating for greater health equity, a mission that the World Health Organization made central to its goals in 2008. “Poor health is no fault of the individuals that live in these communities,” said Dr. Brian Smedley of the Health Policy Institute.

Read more at WBEZ.

Johnny and Sally both attend the same private high school in Chicago. But when the final bell rings, Johnny goes home to the predominantly African-American East Garfield Park community on the west side of the city. Sally usually takes the train back home to Lincoln Park, a predominantly white area on the north side of town.

Both sets of parents make the same total household income and agree that they give their kids the same opportunities in life. But while they’re seemingly awarded the same opportunities, the reality is that one of these fictitious characters is expected to die 12 years earlier than the other, simply because of where he lives.

A recent study shows that the differences in neighborhood conditions strongly predict who will be healthy, who will be sick, and who will live longer, independent of income. The Washington, D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Study released Thursday a report that examines how social and economic conditions in Cook County are linked to poor health outcomes.

Read more at The Grio.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Cook County, IL, PLACE MATTERS team today released a report documenting how neighborhood social and economic conditions in Cook County shape racial and ethnic health inequities in the city.

The report, Place Matters for Health in Cook County:  Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All, finds that the location of a person’s residence is an important indicator of his or her health and health risks.  Additionally, because of persistent racial and class segregation in Cook County, where one lives is an especially important driver of the poorer health outcomes of the county’s non-white and low-income residents.
 

PLACE MATTERS for health in important ways, according to a growing body of research. Differences in neighborhood conditions powerfully predict who is healthy, who is sick, and who lives longer. And because of patterns of residential segregation, these differences are the fundamental causes of health inequities among different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and Cook County, IL, PLACE MATTERS team are very pleased to add to the existing knowledge base with this report, Place Matters for Health in Cook County: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All. The report, supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health and written in conjunction with the Center on Human Needs at the Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, provides a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic, and environmental conditions in Cook County and documents their relationship to the health status of the county’s residents.

The study finds that social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives.

The overall pattern in this report – and those of others that the Joint Center has conducted with other PLACE MATTERS communities – suggests that we need to tackle the structures and systems that create and perpetuate inequality to fully close racial and ethnic health gaps. Accordingly, because the Joint Center seeks not only to document these inequities, we are committed helping remedy them.

The report is available for download below. English-language and Spanish-language versions of our executive summary are also available.

A new study by Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Human Needs researchers shows that lack of education has deep impact on the health and crime rate of a community.

In collaboration with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, the VCU Center on Human Needs is releasing the second of eight studies assessing population health inequities and related social and economic conditions in urban and rural communities across the United States. Working alongside the project partners are eight “Place Matters” teams consisting of individuals who work and live in each of the communities studied.

The second report examines health disparities for the city of New Orleans. The city is still recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and areas that are repopulating are experiencing shifting trends in both health and crime.

Read more at Phys.org.

The state of public education in post-Katrina New Orleans was the topic of discussion at a June 19 forum at Dillard University sponsored by local and national Black journalist groups; the Orleans Parish Place Matters initiative; and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based research and policy institute. The forum featured a panel discussion by area education experts and presented sobering statistics on the impact demographics can have on accessing a quality education.

Held in conjunction with the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in New Orleans this week, the forum, entitled “Reforming Education in Post-Katrina Louisiana,” enlisted Dr. Lance Hill, of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University, Kira Orange Jones, a member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Eric Lewis, state director of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), and Karran Harper Royal, a local education rights advocate, to discuss the effect recent education reforms have had on the city’s students and parents.

Read more at Louisiana Weekly.

The average life expectancy for people in certain parts of New Orleans is just 54 years, according to a new report, meaning that residents there have about the same prospects as people in sub-Saharan African nations such as Cameroon and Angola. In other sections of town, people can expect to live an average of 80 years, putting them in the company of wealthier countries such as New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Along with life expectancy, the report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Orleans PLACE MATTERS initiative analyzes public health across a wide range of measures, ranging from heart disease to violent crime, and maps the results by ZIP code.

The results are sobering.

Read more at the Times-Picayune.

PLACE MATTERS for health in important ways, according to a growing body of research. Differences in neighborhood conditions powerfully predict who is healthy, who is sick, and who lives longer. And because of patterns of residential segregation, these differences are the fundamental causes of health inequities among different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Orleans Parish PLACE MATTERS team are very pleased to add to the existing knowledge base with this report, Place Matters for Health in Orleans Parish: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All. The report, supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health and written in conjunction with the Center on Human Needs at the Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, provides a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic, and environmental conditions in Orleans Parish and documents their relationship to the health status of the Parish’s residents.

The study finds that social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives. Among the study’s key findings are that life expectancy in the Parish varies by as much as 25 years depending on the zip code. Zip codes with the lowest life expectancy tend to have a higher percentage of people of color and low-income residents. Community-level risk factors, such as high concentrations of people living in poverty, overcrowded households, households without a vehicle, and vacant housing are among the factors that predict health inequalities in the Parish.

The overall pattern in this report – and those of others that the Joint Center has conducted with other PLACE MATTERS communities – suggests that we need to tackle the structures and systems that create and perpetuate inequality to fully close racial and ethnic health gaps.

Download the summary here or the full report below.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Orleans Parish, LA, Place Matters team today released a report documenting how neighborhood social and economic conditions in New Orleans powerfully shape racial and ethnic health inequities in the city.

Place Matters for Health in Orleans Parish: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All finds that residents’ zip codes are an important indicator of the health and health risks.  Importantly, because of persistent racial and class segregation, place of residence is an especially important driver of the poorer health outcomes of the city’s non-white and low-income residents.

The report, prepared by the Joint Center and the Orleans Parish Place Matters team in conjunction with the Center for Human Needs at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health.   The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic and environmental conditions in New Orleans – which is the only municipal jurisdiction in the parish – and documents their relationship to the health status of the city’s residents.
 

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The 95819 and 95817 ZIP codes, which encompass much of east Sacramento and Oak Park, respectively, share a border. Each has about 15,000 residents. But an analysis performed by the nonprofit Valley Vision on behalf of local hospitals in 2010 showed that Oak Park residents are more than three times as likely to go to the emergency room for asthma, diabetes or high blood pressure.