Community Health Profile: Kensington, Philadelphia
This profile aims to describe health in the Kensington area as well as neighborhood factors that may impact health.
Community Brief
October 2019
View the brief: Community Health Profile: Kensington, Philadelphia [PDF]
What is a Community Health Profile?
A community health profile uses publicly available existing data to describe the health of a neighborhood or community. The data used are often called "indicators" of neighborhood health status.
The purpose of this community health profile of the Kensington area in Philadelphia, PA is to describe the health and related factors that can impact health (such as income and neighborhood characteristics). This snapshot of neighborhood health status can help community leaders describe the current circumstances to advocate for and utilize resources to plan new programs or services to improve community health. It can also be useful to have these snapshots of over time to see whether improvement efforts have created positive change.
What Does the Community Health Profile Tell Us About Kensington Residents?
Compared to city averages, Kensington has a higher proportion of young people and a lower proportion of older people than Philadelphia overall, using data from 2012-2016.
Kensington has a significantly higher percentage of residents living in poverty and a significantly lower life expectancy than the citywide average.
The proportion of Kensington residents who speak a language other than English at home is more than double that proportion in Philadelphia overall.
Compared to all Philadelphia residents, Kensington residents are more likely to lack public or private health insurance, smoke, have skipped a meal, and have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or mental health diagnoses (though mental health is largely under-diagnosed everywhere).
The percent of people who rate their own health as being fair or poor is higher in Kensington than in Philadelphia overall, and self-rated health has been shown to be predictive of actual health status.
View the brief for more findings Community Health Profile: Kensington, Philadelphia [PDF] on health, income, crime, and built environment.
What Data Was Used in Creating This Community Health Profile?
Data were obtained from a variety of sources to create this brief. Data on neighborhood characteristics were obtained from sources like the US census bureau and Philadelphia city agencies. Data on self-rated health, diagnoses, behaviors, and perceptions of safety were obtained from the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey, a phone survey of more than 10,000 households. We used a statistical method of small area estimation to create estimates of these characteristics at the census tract level (which is a small group of city blocks) and map them. This allows us to show how traits vary across the Kensington area, because Kensington is made up of multiple neighborhoods and numerous census tracts. In addition, we averaged the data for all of the census tracts in this area to get an overall picture of the Kensington area, which can be compared to Philadelphia averages.
| Data Source | Description | Data Used | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. US Census Bureau American Community Survey |
Provides information about demographic information, jobs and employment, education, and home ownership, among other topics |
Age, poverty rate, household income per capita, percent uninsured, percent non-English primary language |
2012-2016 |
| 2. City of Philadelphia Office of Innovation and Technology |
Output of a model developed in cooperation with the City of Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections, Office of Property Assessment, Philadelphia Land Bank and Philadelphia, and Water Department |
Vacant lot and building data |
2018 |
| 3. Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey (SEPAHHS) |
PHMC conducts a landline and cell phone survey of more than 10,000 households in Southeastern Pennsylvania every two years and focuses on health |
Current smokers, cut meal or skipped a meal, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, mental health diagnoses, self-rated health, perceived safety |
2015 |
| 4. US Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates Project (USALEEP) from the National Center for Health Statistics |
The USALEEP project used abridged period life tables to estimate census-tract life expectancy |
Life expectancy data |
2010-2015 |
| 5. Philadelphia Police Department via OpenDataPhilly |
Part 1 and Part 2 Crime Incidents with codes used by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system |
Crime data |
2017 |
| 6. Philly311 via OpenDataPhilly |
All requests submitted via mobile application, calls, walk-ins, emails, website or social media |
311 requests | 2014-2016 |
Strengths and Limitations of These Data
Data from the PHMC Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey samples from all of Southeastern Pennsylvania so there may not be a lot of representation from Kensington specifically. This profile combines three sets of data spanning six years to create stable estimates, and our team created small area estimates specifically for this area. Some programs (e.g., Medicaid expansion) may have changed during the data collection period, which could impact the results. Like any survey data, results may not be representative of all Kensington residents. However, this is the most complete health data on Kensington that currently exists.
The data used in this profile is useful for monitoring change because it is routinely collected over time. Please contact the Urban Health Collaborative at uhc@drexel.edu with any questions about these data or how we created tract- and neighborhood-level estimates.
Citation:
Confair A, Carroll-Scott A, Castro K, Zhao Y, Melly S, Kolker J, Lankenau S, Roth A. Community Health Profile: Kensington, Philadelphia, PA: Drexel University Urban Health Collaborative; October 2019
References
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- The Pew Charitable Trusts. (2016). Philadelphia’s changing neighborhoods: Gentrification and other shifts since 2000. Retrieved from https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2016/05/philadelphias_changing_neighborhoods.pdf