Study Shows Soaring STD Rates In Many Areas Of New York City
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A study by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has found that large parts of the city are plagued with soaring rates for multiple STDs – including HIV/AIDS.
The study surveyed 181 city ZIP codes for concurrence in rates of HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and hepatitis B, as well as two non-sexually-transmitted diseases – hepatitis C and tuberculosis. The diseases often occur among the same populations, the study noted.
The study said 33 percent of all the ZIP codes in New York City were in the top quintile citywide for multiple sexually-transmitted diseases during a survey taken in 2010. Among the most severe examples is ZIP code 10474 in Hunts Point, the Bronx, where rates of hepatitis C, chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV/AIDS all ranked in the top 20 percent of all New York City ZIP codes.
Faring even worse was ZIP code 10457, in the Tremont section of the Bronx, which ranked in the top quintile for all seven diseases surveyed. Forty-three percent of residents in the neighborhood live below the federal poverty line, the report said.
Overall, the Bronx also had the greatest percentage of ZIP codes – 68 percent – in the top 20 percent citywide for multiple STDs.
Nineteen ZIP codes with high rates of poverty in the South Bronx, north-central Brooklyn and northern Manhattan saw top-quintile rates of HIV/AIDS, chlamydia and gonorrhea, the study said.
HIV/AIDS and syphilis both ranked in the top quintile in 13 Manhattan ZIP codes – representing Chelsea-Hell’s Kitchen, Central Harlem-Morningside Heights, East Harlem, Washington Heights-Inwood, and Greenwich Village-SoHo, the report said.
HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C both ranked in the top quintile in 23 ZIP codes in the South Bronx, north central Brooklyn, northern Manhattan, Chelsea-Hell’s Kitchen, and the Rockaways in Queens, the report said.
Hepatitis B and tuberculosis were most prevalent in areas with large foreign-born populations, including ZIP codes in Flushing-Clearview, West Queens, Bayside-Little Neck, and Ridgewood-Forest Hills in Queens; and Sunset Park, Bensonhurst-Bay Ridge and Borough Park in Brooklyn, the study said.
Only Staten Island had no high-morbidity ZIP codes.