New Health Department Study Quantifies the Injustice of Poverty

April 28, 2008 9:22 AM

The new data just released from the Alameda County Public Health Department tells the whole tragic story.

A child born into poverty today in the flats can expect to die 15 years before a child born to wealthier parents.

The child born in the flats is seven times more likely to be born into poverty. This child from the flats will be 5.6 times more likely to drop out of school. As an adult, the child born in the flats will be five times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes, twice as likely to die of heart disease, three times more likely to die of stroke, and twice as likely to die of cancer.