Category: Children's Health, Health Magazine

Title:A stark difference

hand prints on DC map

The School of Nursing & Health Studies has researched and compiled data on how Washington, D.C. residents are faring healthwise. The story looks rosy or bleak, depending on race, which part of the city one lives in, and other demographic classifications. Health Systems Administration Professor and Department Chair Christopher King, PhD, investigates health disparities in the nation’s capital, and in 2020 his team released Health Disparities in the Black Community: An Imperative for Racial Equity. The report reveals alarming differences in the health of District residents depending on race and ward. For children, the socioeconomic disparity is literally black and white.

“In the District of Columbia, 37.5% of Black children are living at or below the federal poverty limit, compared to 1.4% of white children,” says King. “These children are living in conditions that are likely to have a harmful impact on short- and long-term health status.” Examples include unsafe housing, limited access to healthy and affordable food, and increased exposure to violence. “Poverty has a ripple effect.”

“We’re all in this together,” says King, noting that despite division by race and ward, the city’s problems do not exist in isolation. Children’s health can be improved when we uplift the conditions all people are living in, through policy and leadership decisions like expanding affordable housing, says King. He’s watching with interest how the new administration’s child tax credit might help those living on the margins. “Five million kids are projected to be lifted out of poverty as a result of this tax credit” he notes.

“That gives me hope.”

The story originally appeared as a sidebar in Children’s Health Equity Through Community Care.

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