Philadelphia's health lags most big cities in America

Philly Voice

A new resource available online is providing a look at the relative state of Philadelphia's health – and the diagnosis could be better.

The City Health Dashboard, which is making available community-level health, social and economic data by zip code, allows comparison of individual cities to a 500-city average of the largest U.S. cities. For example, the dashboard for Philadelphia shows that:

• Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 15 or more days of class per school year, is much higher in Philadelphia public schools – 31.3 percent than the 500-city average 17.1 percent.

• Nearly 37 percent of city children live in poverty, a figure 1.5 times greater than the 500-city average of 23.6 percent.

•  Violent crimes, including murder, aggravated assault, robbery and forcible rape, numbered 995.8 offenses per 100,000 population, while the national average was 511.2 offenses.