Health inequities series: Exploring life expectancy by ZIP code

Bay Area News Group will begin a four part series on health inequities Sunday that will feature ZIP code maps revealing wide disparities in life expectancy, asthma hospitalizations, heart diease and cancer rates.

The project, by reporters Sandy Kleffman and Suzanne Bohan, found striking health differences among ZIP codes just a few miles apart.

Even middle-class neighborhoods are affected, the analysis reveals. Middle-class areas have longer life expectancies than the poorest neighborhoods, but fall years short of life expectancies in the wealthiest areas.

The series will examine the reasons for such stunning health inequities and the movements underway to close the gaps.

An epidemiologist for the Alameda County Public Health Department computed and mapped the data for the newspaper group.

The series will run this Sunday and Monday, and Dec. 13 and 14. It can be viewed at ContraCostaTimes.com and InsideBayArea.com.

We will also have a live chat at noon on Monday, Dec. 7, with Dr. Anthony Iton, the former Alameda County public health director who is now senior vice president of healthy communities for the California Endowment, and Larry Adelman, creator and executive producer of Unnatural Causes, a documentary series about health inequities broadcast by PBS.