BY YANNIC RACK | Downtown is on top of the city’s latest health rankings.
Lower Manhattan has the longest life expectancy in the city and ranks high on many other health factors, according to a new study by the Department of Health.
Residents of the Downtown area are also less obese and better educated than most New Yorkers. Area residents are also near the top of the standings in regular exercise and eating daily fruits and veggies.
As might be expected, fit and brainy Downtowners have the lowest unemployment rate in the city, and nearly the highest rate of having health insurance.
And it’s not just long-lived seniors and gainfully employed grown-ups who are topping the city stats. Kids in Lower Manhattan have the city’s lowest rates of teen pregnancy and highest rates of elementary school attendance.
The health department rated a variety of categories of health and well being in each of the city’s 59 community districts, and the survey showed that residents of Community District 1 — which spans Battery Park City, the Civic Center, the Financial District, the South Street Seaport and Tribeca — are well aware how healthy they are. A whopping 89 percent of residents report their own health as “good,” “very good,” or “excellent.”
As hale and hearty as Downtowners are, Lower Manhattan isn’t itself the healthiest place in the city to live.
Lower Manhattan’s air pollution is the fourth worst in the city, and has the second-highest density of tobacco retailers. And yet Downtown adults are no more likely to smoke than those in other areas, and Lower Manhattan has one of the lowest rates of childhood asthma hospitalizations in the city.
