Health Department Celebrates a Successful Year of Working to Extend New Yorkers’ Life Expectancy While Promoting Equity
Expanded access to maternal health and abortion care, services addressing serious mental illness and overdose, and free mental health services for all NYC teens, among many other achievements
December 20, 2024 —In 2024, the New York City Department of Health took significant strides toward its ambitious goals to promote and protect the health of New Yorkers.
“From day one, our administration has focused on creating a safer, more affordable New York City. In 2024, we continued to deliver on that vision and ‘Get Stuff Done’ for working-class New Yorkers,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Thanks to our extraordinary public servants, America’s safest big city got even safer this year, with overall crime down and thousands of illegal guns, mopeds, and ghost cars taken off city streets. We passed historic legislation to turn New York into a ‘City of Yes,’ shattered affordable housing records once again, and put billions of dollars back into New Yorkers’ pockets. We broke records for the most jobs and small businesses in city history and moved millions of trash bags off our sidewalks and into containers. But we know that there is even more we can do to continue to uplift working-class families. As we look to the future, our administration remains committed to keeping New Yorkers safe and making our city more affordable for the millions of New Yorkers who call our city home.”
“The DOHMH’s work touches the lives of New Yorkers every day of the year,” said Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse. “From maternal health to mental health and beyond, we protect and promote the health of all New Yorkers. We are committed to prioritizing the communities who have experienced disinvestment and the resulting health inequities.”
HealthyNYC, the DOHMH’s initiative to extend longevity of all New Yorkers to an all-time high of 83 years by 2030, celebrated its first anniversary. The campaign operates not as a singular Health Department initiative, but as an overarching framework for how New York City should approach health. It sets ambitious, measurable targets to reduce the leading causes of overall and premature death, and to narrow racial inequities in health outcomes. Areas of focus include chronic and diet-related diseases, screenable cancers, overdose, suicide, maternal mortality, violence, and COVID-19. This year we reported that in 2022, NYC life expectancy rose to 81.5 years from a low of 78 years in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March, the Health Department worked with NYC City Council member Lynn Schulman to successfully codify HealthyNYC into law. The new local law will hold New York City accountable to the initiative goals, requiring the Health Department to submit progress reports and return to the table every five years to establish new goals and a new agenda to improve health and life expectancy, based on current data.
Mental Health and Substance Use
In January, New York became the first city in the U.S. to designate social media a public health hazard (PDF) for its effect on youth mental health. In February, the city The State of Mental Health of New Yorkers (PDF) presented data from across age groups including formal diagnoses, measures of well-being, and environmental factors that may affect mental health outcomes, and established a clear post-pandemic baseline for mental health in the city. The Special Report on Social Media and Mental Health (PDF) explored social media use and its impact on the mental health of children and parents.
This year marked the first full year of NYC Teenspace, a free mental health support program available to any teenager in the city. Over 16,000 young people, largely from under-resourced neighborhoods, have signed up.
In 2024, we expanded funding for clubhouses, which provide community-centered care for people living with serious mental illness. An additional $30 million per year in city and state dollars will support expanded access to the community resource for New Yorkers living with serious mental illness.
To continue our life-saving work of reducing harms associated with drugs and substance use in 2024, the Health Department distributed 238,479 naloxone kits citywide in the first three quarters of 2024. The city also released plans to apply $50 million in funding annually by 2027 to combat the opioid addiction crisis.
Maternal and Reproductive Health
This year the Health Department also published its report Pregnancy-Associated Mortality in New York City, 2016-2020 (PDF). The findings show that the pregnancy-associated mortality (deaths while pregnant or within 1 year of pregnancy, regardless of cause) ratio in NYC has not changed substantially, and that significant racial inequities remain. From 2016 to 2020, Black non-Hispanic women and people who give birth were four times more likely to die of a pregnancy-associated cause and six times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause (deaths while pregnant or within 1 year of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication) compared with white non-Hispanic people. Historic and current institutional racism in health care and other systems drives these health inequities.
To promote maternal health, the Department’s work included the following:
- Served 7,400 families through the Newborn Home Visiting Program.
- Supported more than 1,000 families of newborn infants through the Nurse Family Partnership.
- Provided doulas for over 2,600 families through the Citywide Doula Initiative.
New York City has continued to scale up access to reproductive health care across city facilities. The NYC Abortion Access Hub provides confidential help accessing an abortion provider in New York City, including help scheduling an appointment, getting financial assistance, and finding transportation and lodging. It has received nearly 8,000 calls and chats since its launch in 2022.
NYC Sexual Health clinics provided nearly 1,000 medication abortion services and administered 43,903 HIV tests, 97,562 gonorrhea/chlamydia tests, 47,634 syphilis tests, and 164 mpox tests, free of charge.
Community-Based Work
The Health Department continued its commitment to investing in place-based work in neighborhoods burdened by health inequities. In the South Bronx, East Harlem, and North and Central Brooklyn, the Family Wellness Suites served more than 1,300 clients with health education and resources.
Health Department staff also engaged community members at more than 900 barbershops, beauty salons, and bodegas in North and Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx around topics ranging from diabetes and hypertension to COVID-19 and flu vaccination. In East Harlem, a new Food Voucher Program served over 500 people who identify as food insecure and demonstrated significant improvement in food security, financial stress, and overall self-reported health.
Data Modernization and Innovation
The Center for Population Health Data Science marked its first anniversary in October. This past year, the Center has launched its efforts to advance the agency’s data modernization work to be ready to respond to the next public health emergency.
The Health Department launched a multi-year research study of long-term outcomes among adults infected with COVID-19, recruiting upwards of 10,000 participants this year and following up with them over several years. This series of surveys will produce New York City-specific data on how COVID-19 impacts individuals over time. This data will inform policy makers and program planners on the needs and barriers to support services for those experiencing long-term physical and mental health problems.
Public Health Infrastructure
The city kicked off a $10.5 million renovation project at the Corona Health Center in Queens, scheduled to be completed in spring 2026. Improving and updating our Corona Health Center will allow us to better serve the community, whether they need testing, treatment, vaccination, or reproductive health services.
The Health Department also joined the Department of Design and Construction and Animal Care Centers of NYC to open the first-ever full-service animal shelter in Queens and celebrate completion of the new Manhattan Pet Adoption Center. The expanded capacity enhances New Yorkers’ animal adoption experience while improving the lives of the animals in our care and creating a welcoming environment for the community.
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