Dorchester is the largest and most populous neighborhood in Boston. With its 92,000 residents, if it were a city, it would be the seventh largest in Massachusetts. The neighborhood’s landscape has vastly changed over the years. Once predominantly Irish,  Dorchester has seen a large immigration of people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and Cape Verde in the last half of the century.

This vast neighborhood’s many parts are joined together by Dorchester Avenue, which runs through it like a spine. Much of Dorchester’s neighborhood bonds have been developed through the powerful infrastructure of nonprofit organizations. Additionally, the first community health center in the United States, the Columbia Point Health Center, was opened here in 1965.

You will notice that the Dorchester neighborhood maps are separated by north and south. Certain demographics for North Dorchester are different from those for South Dorchester, such as median household income. Also, many health outcomes for North and South Dorchester are quite different from each other.  For example, the 2006-2008 infant mortality rate for North Dorchester is 10.6 infant deaths per 1,000 births compared to 6.5 infant deaths for South Dorchester.  Adult asthma prevalence rates are another example.  For the combined period of 2006 and 2008, they were 19% for North Dorchester and 10% for South Dorchester.  For these reasons, the data is more precise when looking at the two areas of the neighborhood separately.

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Sources:

Boston Public Health Commission 2010 HOB Report
My Neighborhood: Boston