In America today, a person’s ability to lead a long, healthy life is so impacted by where they live that it’s startling. You don’t need to travel to a developing country to see communities that have been left in the last century. Stand in the lobbies of some of our largest and most celebrated hospitals and look outside, and you will see urban communities burdened by staggering mortality rates. If you ride a few subway stops or walk a few neighborhood blocks, you travel even further back in time.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), where you live has a greater impact on your life expectancy and overall health than your genetic code. For example, if you look at the neighborhoods of Boston, you will see that its Roxbury neighborhood has the lowest life expectancy — 58.9 years, according to U.S. census data. That life expectancy is shorter than in many third-world countries and is similar to how long the average American lived in the early 1920s. In New Orleans, the divide is so pronounced that a person’s life expectancy can vary as much as 25 years between neighborhoods just a few miles apart.
These types of disparities cost the United States up to $309 billion annually and, if eliminated, would prevent up to 80,000 early deaths each year. Chronic diseases — including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and heart disease — disproportionately affect underserved communities.
Geography has such an extensive effect on health because it determines access to care, information, services and healthy foods. We must tackle them community by community, reaching people where they spend time — in their homes, schools, neighborhoods and faith-based communities. For the full article click here
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