Community Health Profile: West Philadelphia Promise Zone
UHC researchers compiled data on how Promised Zone residents rated their own health, health behaviors, access to health care, and neighborhood characteristics that influence health.
Community Brief
April 2017
West Philadelphia Promise Zone - Identifying Opportunities for Community Health Improvement [PDF]
What is the West Philadelphia Promise Zone?
In 2014, the federal government designated a group of neighborhoods in West Philadelphia as a Promise Zone based on indicators of poverty, unemployment, housing, education, and violence – all factors that influence health – as well as capacity for positive change for its residents. The map in the brief shows the Promise Zone shaded in orange. The Promise Zone is roughly two square miles, includes parts of ten neighborhoods and nine census tracts, and includes 35,315 residents.
What is a Community Health Profile?
A health profile uses 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 health profile is to describe the health and related factors (such as housing, food, etc.) of residents of the Promise Zone, to help residents and health advocates take advantage of resources to plan new programs or services to improve community health. It can also be useful over time to see whether improvement efforts have created positive change. Where possible, we compared what we learned about health in the Promise Zone with all of Philadelphia, or how the Promise Zone compares to the neighborhoods with the highest and lowest of each indicator.
What Do We Know About Health in the West Philly Promise Zone?
This community health profile contains information about a variety of health and quality of life indicators – data on how residents rate their own health, health behaviors, access to health care, and neighborhood characteristics that influence health. The data in this profile generally shows that the Promise Zone neighborhoods perform worse in most health indicators than Philadelphia as a whole and closer to the neighborhoods at the bottom of the range than those at the top. This shows that significant public health challenges and health disparities exist in the Promise Zone.
Read the full community brief West Philadelphia Promise Zone - Identifying Opportunities for Community Health Improvement [PDF]