Health of the Negro 1

The Central Harlem and Lower East Side districts of New York City are areas of low average economic status, the Central Harlem district being populated largely by Negroes, while in the Lower East Side persons of foreign birth or parentage predominate. Both districts are areas of high mortality, the death rate for all causes in each area in the period 1929– 1933 showing an excess of approximately 4 per 1,000 over the rate for the entire City (1). In the same period, the tuberculosis death rate in Central Harlem was over three times as high as the rate for the City, exceeding the rate for all other health districts, and its infant and mortality rates were the highest observed. In the Lower East Side, mortality was excessive for diseases common to adults—the cardiovascular-renal diseases, cancer, diabetes, and pneumonia—reflecting the effect of the higher average age of its population. The high mortality rates and low average economic level common to the two districts assure comparability of the districts in respect to these factors. We thus have for experimental observation Negro and white groups in which certain variables are, to some extent, constant. The