And if that isn’t unfair enough, poverty—and especially the concentration of poverty that segregation causes—kills disproportionately in nonviolent ways as well.
Using the same two sets of communities, we extended our analysis beyond homicide—the eighth-leading cause of death in Chicago—to other, more common causes of death.
Our comparison shows that poor African-American neighborhoods should come with a surgeon general’s warning. When it comes to the leading causes of death in Chicago (cancer, heart disease, diabetes-related illnesses, stroke, and unintentional injury), the mortality rate in the five poorest neighborhoods—Riverdale, Fuller Park, Englewood, West Garfield Park, and East Garfield Park—was far higher than in the five least-poor neighborhoods— Mount Greenwood, Edison Park, Norwood Park, Beverly, and Clearing. For diabetes-related deaths, it was almost double; for unintentional injury, it was more than double. The infant mortality rate—the rate of death in the first year of life—was two and a half times as high. And the death rate from all causes was 60 percent higher than in the wealthier counterparts, and 43 percent higher than the citywide rate.
We drew the figures from a data set published in July by the Chicago Department of Public Health, based on deaths from 2004 through 2008. In the five poorest neighborhoods, between 40 and 61 percent of the households were in poverty, according to Census Bureau estimates for 2006-2010. These communities are 93 to 98 percent African-American.
The least-poor neighborhoods had poverty rates of 3 to 6 percent. All of these are majority white, and only Beverly has a sizeable proportion of African-Americans (35 percent).