CCC’s new edition of the Community Risk Ranking reveals persistent disparities facing children and families across New York City.

New to this year’s report is a detailed analysis of racial/ethnic inequalities, revealing the disproportionate number of black and Latino children living in neighborhoods where the greatest levels of risk concentrate. CCC’s analysis shows that 94% of children living in the highest risk communities are black or Latino. Among the 35 communities where more than half of children are black or Latino, none ranked in the lowest or moderate-low risk categories.

The annual report examines data covering six key areas: economic security, health, housing, education, and youth and family issues; and ranks the city’s 59 community districts from lowest to highest concentration of risk to child well-being.

Community Risk Ranking illustrates a city divided— how children living just blocks or miles apart can have vastly different experiences. Key findings include:

• Eight out of the 10 highest risk communities are concentrated in the Bronx. In many of these districts, more than half of children are living in poverty
• Well-being in Manhattan looks drastically different in adjacent communities, with over 48% of East Harlem children living in poverty compared to less than 7% on the Upper East Side.
• Infants in Brownsville, the highest-risk community in the Health domain, are over three times more likely to die before their first birthday as those in Borough Park which ranks lowest risk.
• In Jamaica/Saint Albans, Queens, the rates of students passing reading and math tests are half that of the neighboring community to the north, Fresh Meadows/Briarwood. The high school graduation rate is also 14 percentage points lower in Jamaica/St Albans than Fresh Meadows/Briarwood.
• The rate of families entering homeless shelters is seven times higher in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, compared to Fort Greene/Brooklyn Heights, its neighbor to the west. The share of households spending 50% or more of their income on rent is also much higher, at nearly 30% in Bedford Stuyvesant compared to close to 18% in Fort Greene/Brooklyn Heights.

Armed with this data, CCC is preparing to advocate for the policies and programs that will help eliminate these disparities and ensure all children in New York City have access to the resources they need.

Some of the priorities CCC is advancing include:

• Build on Mayor de Blasio’s pre-k and after-school initiatives to expand affordable, high quality early childhood education to infants and toddlers, and increase the capacity for after-school and summer programs.
• Prioritize incentives in the city’s and state’s affordable housing plans to ensure that New Yorkers have access to parks, playgrounds, food retail, social services, and transportation systems.
• Expand efforts to provide students with universal school meals and improve access to the summer meals program to ensure that all children across the city are benefiting.
• Increase outreach and access to preventive health and mental care in schools and communities to ensure that children and families have access to appropriate screenings, assessments and treatments from prenatal care through adulthood.
• Broaden tax incentives, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, to help address the rent burden for New Yorkers who earn too much for subsidies and for whom median wages have not increased.

Download the full report now. You can also explore more data indicators on our online database, Keeping Track Online.

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And join us on February 14th for the launch of new data tools coming to Keeping Track Online that will bring the Community Risk Ranking data online and allow users to map the services, supports and infrastructure that exist within communities to address barriers to child well-being. Learn more and register to attend.