East Flatbush Has Highest Infant Mortality Rate In NYC, Data Show

EAST FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — East Flatbush babies are less likely to live to blow out the candles on their first birthday cakes than anywhere else in Brooklyn, new Health Department data show.

The eastern Brooklyn neighborhood is one of three in New York with a 6.7 infant mortality rate, the highest in the city, according to a report released Monday by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Bureau of Vital Statistics.

Long Island City and Queens Village also saw an average of 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2015 to 2017 while the citywide average was just 4.3, according to the report.

Death rates were also in Central Harlem in Manhattan (6.5), Unionport and Soundview in The Bronx (6.4) and Canarsie in Brooklyn (6.4). The lowest infant mortality rate were in Midtown with a .6, Greenwich Village, SOHO and Bay Ridge with 1.3, and Chelsea with a 1.4.

The Health Department statisticians also analyzed city infant mortality rates by race, income and nationality and found rates were highest among black, impoverished and foreign-born New Yorkers

The infant mortality rate for black New Yorkers was 3.3 times the rate for white New Yorkers in 2017 and that disparity increased from 3.1 in 2016, data show.

The Infant mortality rate in very high poverty areas was 1.4 times the infant mortality rate in low poverty areas in 2017.

And the disparity between Puerto Ricans and white New Yorkers doubled to 2.6 in 2017 from 1.3 in 2016.

The infant mortality rate was highest among mothers born in Haiti at 7.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Jamaican-born mothers born with 6.5, Pakistan-born mothers with 6.4, Ghana-born mothers with 6.3, and Puerto Rico-born mothers at 6.0.

Census data for the East Flatbush zip code 11203 show about 68,7000 of the neighborhood's approximate 76,000 residents in 2017 identified as black or African American and the median household income was $48,140, half New York City's $96,000 area median income.