Monday, December 7, 2009
Living in Oakland Is Hazardous for Your Health
Health & Medicine / Environment Robert Gammon — Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 11:16 AM
People die at a much younger age in some Oakland neighborhoods than in any other spot in the East Bay, according to a new series by the Bay Area News Group. In fact, the five worst zip codes in terms of life expectancy are in Oakland, with two in East Oakland rated as the lowest among eighty throughout the East Bay. By contrast, three of the top five in terms of life expectancy are in the Berkeley hills.
Oakland also is ground zero for childhood asthma and heart disease rates. Downtown Oakland is the worst in terms of childhood asthma hospitalizations. In fact, kids in downtown are twelve times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than children in leafy Lafayette. Oakland also has the five worst zip codes in the East Bay for childhood asthma. The city also has the five worst for heart disease. In some neighborhoods, residents are 2.5 times to three times more likely to suffer from heart disease than in the Berkeley hills.
Comments (2)
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This is an important subject, one that needs to be explored further! I was hoping to really read some good information, causes, solutions etc. Just wondering where are all the juicy details that comprise so many of the other articles written by this author. Wondering how come we can't see two three pages on this subject (that affects so many and is really relevant to this city we live in), as opposed to topics that are meaningless, but get so much more discussion in this paper? "Jack"
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While I believe that this type of reporting is completely necessary to bring these issues into conversation, I have to ask once again, why is any of this surprising? Areas of Downtown, East and West Oakland are continuing to be forgotten, pushed aside and lowered in every priority (or completely ignored) from the distribution of city urban renewal dollars, to stimulus dollars, to increased police patrols, to health care initiatives , to school support...because of one reason - they are almost exclusively populated by poor brown citizens. This is indicative of the blight that continues to plague Oakland is a terrible way - those who have continue to have and continue to be unwilling to assist those who struggle. When will this city being to make the difficult and important choices to help its poor children and failing neighborhoods?
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