Home Disadvantage - where you live affects your health

A small Seattle community battles health disparities that disproportionately affect the poor and people of color.   |   Laura T. Coffey | March 30, 2011

In the absence of a major supermarket, three corner markets along South Park's main drag sell cigarettes, beer, wine, chips, candy, sugary cereals, and Hungry-Man TV dinners. Two of the three stores don't have produce sections at all. One of them, South Park Grocery, has large Camel cigarette ads on the floor directly in front of the candy selections.

Antoinette Angulo, a health-education program manager with Sea Mar Community Health Centers, which provides five clinics for low-income South Park residents, says uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes is widespread among clinic patients. Worse yet, adults with diabetes here and in nearby Georgetown are more likely to die from the disease or related conditions than are adults in neighboring communities.

"There's absolutely a food desert here," Angulo says. "The whole environment is set up to make it the hardest choice possible for people to eat healthy."

The American Prospect