Five Health Stats To Know About Kensington/Borough Park

Kensington and Borough Park are at the top of the pack in several health categories despite the high poverty rate in our area.

Department of Health data released last year found that we are doing very well on a variety of fronts —  such as asthma rates, stroke hospitalization, infant mortality, and HIV infection — but we need to do more when it comes to basic health maintenance, such as flu shots, and controlling obesity and diabetes.

The report examines Community District 12, which covers Kensington, Dahill, Midwood and Borough Park. (Check out this map to see if you live in District 12.)

First, some background on the neighborhood:

• Nearly one-third of us live below the Federal poverty line; CD12 is the ninth-poorest neighborhood in NYC.
• The district area has a population of 199,149.
• We are 64 percent white, 19 percent Asian, 13 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent Black.
• Almost one-third of us, thirty-two percent, are foreign born, and one-third of us have limited English proficiency.

Here are five health facts to know about our area:

1. We are doing great when it comes to asthma and infant mortality rates.

Kensington/Borough Park has the lowest asthma hospitalization rate in the city among children ages 5 to 14, one-sixth the overall rate for NYC. The rate of avoidable adult asthma hospitalizations in our area is less than half the Brooklyn and citywide rates.

The infant mortality rate here (1.8 per 1,000 live births) is the fourth lowest in New York City.

2. We have work to do when it comes to preventative health care.

Kensington/Borough Park has the fourth-lowest rate of teenage girls who receive the full human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series among all city neighborhoods. New York City teen girls have an overall vaccination rate of 43 percent, as opposed to 20 percent in our area.

Adults in our community are significantly less likely (42 percent) to get tested for HIV than adults in Brooklyn (61 percent) and citywide (62 percent). Only one-third of adults in our area receive a flu vaccination.

3. We need to take better long-term care of our adult population.

Almost one-fourth (23 percent) of adults in our area are obese; nine percent of adults here have diabetes. We rank similarly to the city overall in both areas, but our obesity rate is nearly three times that of Manhattan communities like Stuyvesant Town and Turtle Bay.

4. A significant proportion of Kensington/Borough Park residents were uninsured in 2015.

In Kensington/Borough Park, one in five adults had no health insurance, and one in ten went without needed medical care, similar to adults citywide. The Department of Health says that this number is expected to drop.

5. Heart disease and cancer are the neighborhood’s top killers.

The top causes of death for residents of Kensington and Borough Park, as for most New Yorkers, are heart disease and cancer. Just over 1,700 of us died of heart disease last year, and 1,169 died of cancer.

Cause of death #3? The flu. And our death rate from the flu is slightly higher than the city rate, which may speak to our relatively poor performance on flu vaccinations.

Our death rates due to diabetes, stroke, lower respiratory diseases, and accidents are lower than the citywide rates.

Want more information? The Department of Health has a great Environment & Health Data Portal, where you can look at trends across the city.

We also took a similar look at Community District 14, which covers greater Flatbush and Midwood.