Baltimore is the least healthy jurisdiction in Maryland followed by several Eastern Shore counties, according to an annual ranking that has changed little over the past several years despite improvements in some of the city's worst statistics.

Wealthier suburban counties such as Montgomery and Howard were ranked as the healthiest in the state.

The 2016 rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin show a striking gap in the rate of premature death between the healthiest and least healthy areas of the state. Those living in Baltimore lost three and a half times the number of years of life than those in Howard.

The findings were not surprising to public health officials in Baltimore who have sought for years to reduce disparities not only between the city and surrounding counties but between well off and disadvantaged neighborhoods within the city.

"This affirms what we know in public health to be true, that the currency of inequality is years of life," said Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore's health commissioner. "Access to healthcare is important, but what determines how long someone lives and quality of life depends much more on things around them like access to housing and education and income inequality."

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Zika is back — the threat never really went away.

Maryland already has logged five cases of the virus among travelers this year and Florida has reported residents infected locally.

With mosquito season about to begin, state and local public health officials are gearing up efforts for a new outbreak of the Zika virus blamed for devastating brain defects in newborns and neurological and eye problems in adults.

The effort to prevent infections gained added urgency this month after researchers tied the mosquito-borne virus to potentially deadly heart problems.

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In Baltimore, health department officials also handed out kits and worked to drain standing water. They are working on a similar plan for this year.

Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore health commissioner, said the city has an inter-agency task force that is prepared to ramp up education and prevention efforts, and to respond if there is a local case.

Wen, who is pregnant, said residents cannot let down their guard.

"There still seems to be information coming out every week about the risks and transmission," she said. "In the city we were prepared last year and we will continue to be prepared this year."

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Among the numerous cuts in the Trump Administration’s proposed federal budget plan are critical services that are used to support older Americans. As leaders who, respectively, safeguard the health and well-being of 620,000 residents in Baltimore, and represent the interests of the 50-plus community and their families across Maryland, we are deeply concerned how the proposed budget’s significant cuts will devastate the health and well-being of older adults.

In Baltimore City, there are over 100,000 residents over the age of 60. One in six of these residents live below the poverty line. For older adults of color, that ratio is two in five. The proposed federal budget will worsen rampant disparities and will be disastrous to our city’s older adults.

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For the second episode of "The 23%: Conversations With Women in Government," I chatted with Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore. Growing up as a Chinese immigrant in a rough area of Los Angeles, Wen quickly saw the ways in which public health impacts everyday life. These days, her mantra is: “Public health saved your life today. You just didn’t know it.” Her dizzying resume includes graduating from college at 18, a master’s from the University of Oxford and a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School. When Baltimore came calling in 2014, Dr. Wen was practicing and teaching medicine in D.C. RELATED NEW PODCAST Only a few months into her first venture in public service, Baltimore was uprooted with riots after the police-involved death of Freddie Gray. In this episode, Dr. Wen talks about how her office worked quickly to deploy various public health initiatives to get the city back on its feet. She also discusses her aggressive tactics against the opioid epidemic, which caught the attention of President Obama.

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