Quality of Life—Health and well-being
- Indicator: Life expectancy at birth
- Source: MD Department of Health, Vital Statistics Annual Reports, Table 7
- Years included: 2007-2019
The health and well-being indicator evolved significantly during Subcommittee deliberations. Initially, we considered using data on “premature deaths” before the age of 75; however, these data were not disaggregated by race/ethnicity—as an important measure for equity—and was deemed unacceptable. Another possibility considered was “Infant deaths before 1 year of age,” which had the advantage of being disaggregated by race/ethnicity as well as by Maryland jurisdiction. Looking at the actual data; however, revealed that the numbers of such deaths in most jurisdictions were so low that our ability to track progress would be limited; furthermore, no data at all were available for 8 jurisdictions on this indicator. Finally, we chose the most intuitive indicator: life expectancy at birth, which had the advantage of being an inclusive dataset that met all selection criteria.