Roseto, Pennsylvania

Roseto is a borough in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley, with 1,581 residents at the 2020 census and a total area of about 1.6 square kilometres. Italian immigrants from Roseto Valfortore in Apulia began arriving in 1882 to work in the local slate quarries, and the borough, whose name means rose garden in Italian, was incorporated in 1912. Roseto is known in sociology and cardiology for the Roseto effect, the finding that its close-knit Italian American community had about half the national rate of heart disease in the mid-20th century, which helped establish that stress can contribute to heart disease. Folklorist Carla Bianco compared it with its Italian namesake in The Two Rosetos in 1974. Pennsylvania Routes 191 and 512 serve the borough.