Maryland Has a Historic Opportunity to Improve the State’s Health and Reduce Health Inequities

Maryland ranks near the bottom third among states in health, in large part because of significant inequities among our state’s racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. African Americans in Maryland, for example, face infant mortality rates that are nearly three times higher than white Maryland residents. Latinos are over four times more likely than whites to not have health insurance. And low-income residents of the state’s Western and Eastern Shore counties, as well as our urban communities, face higher rates of chronic disease but have less access to primary care and other health care services than residents of higher-income Maryland communities.

A growing body of research argues for a focus on neighborhoods and communities—the spaces and places where people are born, grow, live, work, and age—as a key factor in predicting health and health care access. Neighborhoods powerfully and negatively shape health directly through things like environmental degradation and the stress that comes from living in a high-crime area. They also indirectly influence health in that they shape behavior, such as diet and exercise, based on what’s bought and sold, and whether people feel safe outdoors.
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