Brownsville Infants 3 Times More Likely To Die, Study Finds

BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN -- Brownsville babies are more likely to die before their first birthday than babies from any other New York City neighborhood, a new study shows.

Brownsville's staggering infant mortality rate, low reported birth weights and large number of kids without health insurance make the neighborhood the highest risk community for New York City children, according to a Citizens' Committee for Children of New York report released Tuesday.

The CCC’s Community Risk Ranking shows that with an infant mortality rate of 5.4 out of 1,000, Brownsville children less than one-year-old are three times as likely to die than those born in the Upper East Side, where the rate is the lowest.

"It's a reflection of Brownsville having the largest child population in the city and the homogeneous population that is primarily black," CCC Executive Director Jennifer March told Patch.

"There are historic disparities in treatment," said March. "It often has to do with access to prenatal care and post-prenatal support."

The health risk for Brownsville kids is only exacerbated by low birthweight — 13.2 percent of Brownsville children are born weighing less than 2,500 grams — and the high number (3.4 percent) of kids without health insurance.

Those rankings are why Brownsville topped the list of health risks for children with a .72 index score. Jamaica, Queens came in second with a .65 and Queens Village was third with a .65 score. As a comparison, the Upper East Side in Manhattan earned a .09.

Brownsville also puts its students in a high-risk position academically, according to the report.

Hunts Point, Unionport and Brownsville, the three riskiest districts for students, all struggle to provide quality educational programing to children.

Only about one in five of Brownsville's elementary and middle school students passed the city's reading test in 2016, the report found. The kids found the math test even harder — only 16.3 percent passed.

Just 62 percent of kids are enrolled in early education programs and the most recent high school graduation rate was just 39 percent, or about 4 diplomas every 10 students.

To read the full CCC report, click here.

Photo courtesy of Mint Images/Shutterstock