VOL. 23, NO. 14	FEBRUARY 6, 1998

espite all its problems, Washington Heights is a remarkably healthy place to live, says Columbia epidemiologist Richard Garfield, Henrik Bendixen Professor of Clinical International Nursing, about the telling statistics contained in the newly revised publication The Health of a Community II.

  A joint effort by Columbia’s Schools of Public Health and Nursing, the recently released 95-page fact book documents all aspects of health and well-being in the northern Manhattan community of 200,000 people.

  Acknowledging that Washington Heights faces many challenges, including low-income and poor education levels, a high rate of single parent households, drugs and a large immigrant population, Garfield, editor of the report, says that “if you only look at these problems and needs, you miss half the story.”

  The data suggest that extended family support systems and the informal economic sector, not normally measured by government bodies, may make the difference.

  According to the report, rates of infant mortality, maternal mortality, deaths due to heart disease and cancer, hospitalizations for diagnoses avoidable by adequate primary care and most other health measures are more positive in Washington Heights than in comparable neighborhoods.

  Many data sources not normally analyzed to assess the quality of life, such as representative household samples, data from community agencies, hospitals, the census, and state insurance information, were used by Garfield, David Abramson of the New York Academy of Medicine Urban Health Initiative, and School of Public Health students Danielle Greene and Susanne Burkhart.

  Among the report’s significant findings:

• Washington Heights has crime rates only slightly higher than the upper West Side.
• Rates of AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis are low.
• A high proportion of the population has visited a doctor in the last six months.

  Only one indicator – deaths among young adult males – is worse in Washington Heights than in New York City overall.

  School of Public Health Dean Allan Rosenfield, says, “This report is an excellent example of an academic health center working on a collection of information that will be of significant use to its community—to individuals, to local community organizations, as well as to those in the academic community concerned about local health-related issues.”

  Garfield says, “Such outcomes are unheard of in a community of poor immigrants with low levels of schooling. Obviously something is working. Now we must learn how such a success came about and use this information to work with people in other neighborhoods like Central Harlem, East Harlem and the South Bronx.”

  A national model, the first edition of this document was highlighted by the National Academy of Sciences and Philip R. Lee, former Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services.

  Developed under a grant from the national “Health of the Public” program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation, the document was widely circulated two years ago and has become the ultimate source relied upon by most agencies.