MOCO Diversity Increases, Car-Related Deaths Decrease: Health Report

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — A 10-year health report detailing trends in Montgomery County was recently released, including data about demographics and social determinants of health, vital statistics, maternal and infant health, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, behavioral health, injuries and environmental health.

The county said in a news release that Montgomery County generally scores better than the nation for health outcomes.

The leading causes of death in the county are cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, accidents and chronic lower respiratory disease, according to the report.

"When we review the data in the annual county health rankings, we have been very deliberate to not lull ourselves into a false sense of confidence," said Department of Health and Human Service Director Raymond L. Crowel in the report. "While we may rank as the healthiest Maryland county, there are many troubling trends that point to disparities in outcomes for several sub-populations ranging from disease specific outcomes to economic and quality of life outcomes and could pertain to health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, mortality and morbidity rates stratified by age, sex, race and ethnic subpopulations."

County officials noted a few other areas of interest:

• non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic populations have increased in Montgomery County
• teen births have decreased and are below the state and national average
• heart disease related emergency room visit rates increased
• Montgomery County has lower mortality and ER visit rates than the state
• Vehicle-related mortality and hospitalization rates decreased
• Tuberculosis rates in Montgomery County were consistently higher than in Maryland and the nation
• Black residents had the highest ER visit rates

"Montgomery County fares better than state and national averages for many health benchmarks, such as life expectancy, but the data also suggests several concerning trends in access and utilization of care services, and disparities in a number of categories, such as infant mortality and chronic disease management," said Dr. James Bridgers, acting County health officer, in a news release. "Our goal is to utilize the data to enhance our current health programs and develop new, innovative, accessible, and effective programs that are directly applicable to meeting the public health needs of our residents."

See more data from the study.