Poverty, Race and Geography Influence Health Outcomes for Residents of the Finger Lakes

Common Ground Health has recently released its Health Equity Chartbook for 2018.  The Chartbook illustrates how health inequity is a pervasive and deep problem across the Finger Lakes region.

Many residents struggle to stay healthy and manage illness because of barriers associated with their socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity or neighborhood.

These data show that African Americans and residents in the regions’ lowest SES areas experience higher rates of years of potential life lost across nearly all causes of death.  However, data in the full report illuminate the largest drivers of disparity, which, therefore, point to the most significant opportunities for improvement.

The chartbook provides a broader and deeper look at health disparities – not only at outcomes such as premature mortality, but also at some of the upstream factors that lead to those outcomes. This exploration is framed by the Health Inequity Pathway.

This framework shows how disease and mortality are driven by the social determinants of health (living conditions and behaviors), which themselves are shaped by underlying and persistent social and structural inequities including racism. Understanding and addressing these root causes is critical for any effort aimed at large and sustainable improvement in health equity.

Download the full report at https://www.commongroundhealth.org/publications

You can see our region’s socioeconomic status disparities, as well as add additional map layers, in the RocHealthData map room.