General population measures
Analysis: Although the overall population of Brownsville has increased, there has been notable decrease in the population of young children in the community. In contrast the child population under 5 in NYC and Brooklyn has increased since 2006, although less so than the general population. More granular data reveal decreases in child population since the covid-19 pandemic throughout NYC, although the decreases are particularly steep in predominantly Black neighborhoods like Brownsville. This New York Times article featuring a FAB member discusses the trend.
Analysis: The child poverty rate in Brownsville is consistently higher than that of Brooklyn and NYC, although the trend from 2005-2021 is slightly down in Brownsville. This is in-line with research showing that pandemic era benefits, particularly the Child Tax Credit in 2021, dramatically reduced child poverty. It is anticipated that child poverty rates have increased since 2021 following the expiry of the CTC as an advance payment
Analysis: The birth rate in Brownsville has typically been in line with the Brooklyn rate, which is usually higher than the citywide rate. Overall, birth rates in NYC have been on the decline since the real estate crisis from 2008-2010. There was a steep drop in birth rates with the onslaught of the covid-19 pandemic. It is notable that in 2020, the birth rate in Brownsville fell below that of Brooklyn and NYC, which is in line with the child population trends noted above.
Analysis: Infant mortality is consistently higher in Brownsville than in NYC or Brooklyn. Although there were marked improvements in the infant mortality rate in Brownsville from 2010-2015, there was an immediate rise in infant mortality following 2015. This New York Times article published just before the covid-19 pandemic highlighted the disturbing trend in Brownsville and Central Brooklyn.
Data related to current and potential UB priorities
Benefits access & maternal infant health: WIC uptake
WIC is a federally administered program that provides food, nutritional guidance, and other benefits with proven impacts on not maternal-infant health and child development.
WIC’s benefits include reduced child mortality, premature births, and low-weight births; an ovrerall cost savings; improved cognitive development; and improved participation in healthcare. Read more here.
Analysis: Brownsville is below the state average of WIC uptake, with 50% less uptake than highest performing regions, which include the South Bronx (1st in state) and Upper Manhattan (5th in state). Brownsville also underperforms national trends in WIC uptake.
WIC uptake is a new priority for United for Brownsville begun in late 2023. Our theory is that we can increase uptake in the WIC region that includes Brownsville in two ways:
- Improve practices by optimizing social service provider practices around food insecurity screenings, sharing high-quality info about WIC with clients (including customization of WIC marketing for the neighborhood), and referring clients to WIC offices.
- Improving the user experience of WIC clients through using the benefit in grocery stores (including training grocery store staff in best practices).
Special needs: Early Intervention
Early Intervention (EI) is a a federal entitlement for children aged 0-36 months with certain disabilities and developmental delays.
EI provides free services like physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and assistive technology to qualified children. It is administered by New York State’s Department of Health with local oversight from the NYC Department of Health. EI is known to be incredibly effective: there is an $8 benefit for every dollar spent on the program, and 1/3 of participants do not need special education following EI.
Analysis: Although EI is an entitlement, it is not accessed equally by all. Across the country and in New York City and New York State, white children tend to be over-represented in the EI system, while Black children tend to be under-represented. This was also true in Brownsville, when UB began working on the issue in 2019. However, thanks to the work of dozens of collaborators in NYC and Brownsville led by United for Brownsville, the neighborhood achieved equitable rates of enrollment in EI services in 2022.
UB will continue to work on EI equity in the following ways:
- Sustaining and deepening our successes by focusing on decreasing the drop-offs of Black and Latinx children at evaluation stage of the EI enrollment process, which are still double those of white children in NYC.
- Helping other communities adopt UB’s approach to EI equity.
- Participating in advocacy related to equity goals.
Special needs: Preschool special education
Services for children aged 3-4 with special needs are coordinated by the NYC DOE’s Committee for Preschool Special Education (CPSE). Children receive Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) may receive access to special educational teachers and classrooms, assistive technology, busing, and services like OT and PT.
The DOE has recently been out of compliance with a federal judge’s orders to meet is special needs obligations. At the preschool level, over 1/3 or students did not receive all their services in 2022. CPSE reports a lack of service providers that prevents children from getting through the referral process, while groups like Advocates for Children recommend specific fixes such as hiring more evaluators and service providers within the DOE.
Analysis: Although the NYC DOE fails to provide special education services for preschoolers citywide at shockingly high rates, it is clear from UB’s analysis that some districts enjoy considerably greater access to CPSE. In each of the three years that UB has analyzed the publicly available data, Brownsville has ranked 31st or 32nd out of 32 districts in terms of access to CPSE when examining rates of referral, the percentages of referred children indicated for services, and the percentages of indicated children who receive those services by the end of the school year. While low referral rates in Brownsville might stem from low parental trust in the system or low preschool enrollment, given birth and EI data, one would expect higher rates of eligibility for CPSE. Brownsville’s lower rates of eligibility and receipt of CPSE services point to an inability of the DOE to equitably connect children to evaluators and service providers.
UB does not currently work on CPSE access other than for EI clients who age out of that system and pass on to CPSE. CPSE has not committed to eliminating the disparate access to CPSE services in Brownsville. However, UB envisions several ways it could assist CPSE equity efforts under the right circumstances:
- Creating better parent-facing information about the CPSE process and information tailored to parents in the community
- Building partnerships with CPSE service providers and evaluators who work in or prioritize Brownsville to optimize the ways services are distributed
- Working with local daycares and early childhood education centers to identify best practices for helping children with special needs get through the CPSE process.
Early childhood education: Percentage of children enrolled
High quality early childhood education and childcare programs are proven to have developmental, educational, and social benefits for children — particularly children from low income households — as well as to impact mothers’ and female caregivers’ abilities to participate in the workforce.
According to UB’s analysis, Brownsville has a ratio of children <5 to childcare seats of higher than 2:1, which means it does not fit the state’s definition of a childcare desert. That said, childcare is considerably unaffordable to families in Brownsville. Federal and NYC comptroller measures of affordability for childcare are <7% of household income. Given household incomes in Brownsville, this would be $180 per month in a city where childcare average 5x-10x.
Analysis: Because of the mismatch of the cost of childcare with local salaries, in 2022-23 UB focused on increasing access to low-income childcare vouchers in Brownsville during a period when NYC cleared waiting lists, increased eligibility for vouchers, increased voucher amounts, and prioritized 17 neighborhoods including Brownsville. We have not been able to attain access to monthly ACS data that would let UB closely track the impact of that work, but we do believe an equitable number of vouchers (which UB defined as >1.8%) were distributed to Brownsville residents in 2023. (A number of data reported above are summarized and fully cited in this table.)
The data in the table above are for 3-4 year olds, who mainly participate in NYC’s Universal Pre-K and 3-K programs, the latter of which piloted in Brownsville (District 23) in 2017. Ideally, UB would have more recent, comparable data for participation in childcare and early childhood education for children aged 0-36 months, but these data are currently unavailable. Overall trends UB has noted in recent years include the following:
- Approximately 40% of children living in Brownsville leave the district at very high rates to attend K-5 schools according to District 23 data published by the NYC DOE.
Health care: Well child visit completion
Are children going to the doctor regularly? Well child visits are free to most children, follow a regular schedule, and are essential for providing vaccines, checking on healthy development, and referring children to specialists and their families to social services. Brownsville is somewhat below the Brooklyn and NYC averages for completion of well-child visits, but is in the lower 25th percentile in NYC and almost 60% less than the highest performing neighborhood. There is not a current UB project in this area.
Child welfare involvement: Rates of investigation through foster care
Is the city’s child welfare agency disproportionately involved in the community? ACS, NYC’s child welfare agency, investigates complaints of child abuse and neglect and may respond in different ways, from closing a case to starting families in preventive programs to placing children in foster care. While designed to prevent abuse, research has demonstrated racial and class bias in child welfare practices, as well as negative consequences for communities frequently involved with the system. Brownsville has more than triple the rate of child welfare involvement of NYC and Brooklyn. Unlike most parts of NYC, the largest source of complaints is non-mandated reporters in Brownsville (not reflected in this data). There is not a current UB project in this area. See more at the Family Policy Project.
Notes on the data
Remember that the data below represent real children from Brownsville and New York City. They are not just statistics.
Brownsville rates low on many metrics, which we believe measure the disproportionate barriers families face when trying to access essential services. Our work removing barriers in Early Intervention and the subsequent rise in EI access, for example, proves this case.
This dashboard is a work in progress. We will continue make updates as new data become available.