Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley Stretches the Truth with Mortality Rates

I am writing in an effort to inform the public that the recent mortality rates released by the Health Department that are a part of Mayor Martin O'Malley's campaigning are very misleading to the average citizen of the Baltimore metro area. To the average citizen these statistics may appear to be positive because they do not have a trained eye to know what to look for in statistics as far as distinguishing the past and present mortality rates. The biggest distinguishing factor clearly evident is the fact that the mortality chart does not represent the differences among races. The next major issue is the fact that the data represented in the public release is not the same as the data represented on the Department of mental Health and Hygiene website.

As any slightly knowledgeable individual in health knows, the African American life expectancy is much lower than that of Caucasians. The average citizen also knows that the United States is populated more by Caucasians than African Americans. Therefore combining the entire population into a mortality rate chart skews citizens' knowledge about the quality of life present in the Baltimore. At first glance it looks as if the Baltimore and overall Maryland area has shown marked improvement in the past decade but as a person represented in the African American population I would want to know if the data depicted shows a decline in deaths among everyone or just one particular group. This can have a major impact because even if the minority group has no improvement in the mortality rate the majority race can cause a severe drop in the mortality rate. This is the result of the majority group simply representing more of the population.

As an example the overall mortality rate for the entire Maryland area shows a decrease in the mortality rate yet when the races are separated African American males have the lowest improvement rate while Caucasian females have the best improvement rates but when combined the total decrease appears to be very positive. Differences among racial groups also impact the area because certain races tend to populate different areas. Taking a trip trough the metropolitan area of Baltimore an individual can clearly observe that more minorities are present than if one took a trip through the rural farm areas of Maryland.

The second major problem in the chart representation is the fact that it differs from the statistics provided on the official DHHS website. When I calculated the rates on the website the decrease was less than 10% while the official Mayor O'Malley release was well over 10% because of the number disparities shown. The DHHS website showed the same mortality rate chart but also incorporated the differences among races. This may bring about concerns among the people that the chart shown is only to make the current Mayor seem as if he brought about positive change among mortality rates. This also causes confusion when individuals look further into the statistics as I did. If further research leads to more and more noticeable differences among mortality rates this may lead people to believe that the statisticians working for the state of Maryland have no credibility.

To sum up the moral, ethical, and political issues involved with skewing people's perception of statistics are highly evident. This not only hides the racial differences it does exactly what the media does to citizens everyday, that is shows only what they want them to see. Showing one side of a statistic will lead to false knowledge in the public and if the truth were revealed the public would hold the Mayor responsible because his name is the first thing scripted on the document.