A new Johns Hopkins University survey shows a racial divide on feelings toward police, differences of physical and mental health perceptions based on educational background, and other key findings about quality of life issues in the Baltimore area.
Released on Tuesday, the survey was designed by researchers with the university’s 21st Century Cities Initiative in collaboration with community leaders. The initiative which conducts research, education, and outreach about the causes and effects of urban economic growth.
“Johns Hopkins has research aimed all over the world, and it’s just as important to focus on Baltimore,” said lead author Michael Bader, an associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins and faculty director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative, in a statement. “Our hope is that this survey will help all of us better understand our home.”
Surveyors sent the inaugural Baltimore Area Survey to 6,000 Baltimore City households and 4,000 Baltimore County households. The online survey received results from 1,352 respondents during the summer of 2023.
The overall survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent. For Baltimore City residents alone, the margin of error is plus or minus 5.1 percent. For Baltimore County residents alone, the margin of error is 6.3 percent.
Surveyors focused on four main themes: neighborhood conditions; health; resident finances and entrepreneurship; and the connections residents have to people, places, and organizations in the Baltimore area.
Neighborhood conditions
Most Baltimore-area residents reported feeling satisfied with their neighborhoods, though perceptions of school quality were low.
County residents were slightly more satisfied with their neighborhoods, but more city residents reported seeing neighborhood improvement over the last five years.
The survey found mixed feelings over the quality of schools. Overall, a little more than one-fifth of Baltimore-area residents described their neighborhood’s public schools as “very good” or “excellent” quality. Meanwhile, one-third rated their local schools as “good,” 27 percent said they were “fair,” and 17.4 percent said they were “poor” quality.
The divide was deeper between the school perceptions of Baltimore City and Baltimore County residents.
Among Baltimore City residents, only 12.8 percent rated the quality of their neighborhood’s public schools as “excellent” or “very good.” More than double the amount of Baltimore County residents – 28.4 percent – rated their neighborhood’s schools that way.
Connectivity
Three in five Baltimore-area residents said they trust nearby businesses and nonprofits to do what is right “almost always” or “most of the time.” Trust in local governments, however, was significantly lower, with only about half that amount saying they trusted their local government to do what was right “almost always” or “most of the time.”
The survey showed a stark divide between Black and white residents’ level of fear of police.
Three-quarters of Black residents feared police to some degree, including one-quarter who said they had “a lot” of fear of being questioned or arrested by police.
Among white residents, only about 4 percent said they had a lot of fear, while three-quarters said they had no fear at all of police.
Transportation
One-third of Baltimore-area residents said they experienced at least one transportation-related issue in the past 30 days, including 43.5 percent of city residents and 26.2 percent of county residents.
Among the issues reported were: having to reschedule an appointment, skipping going somewhere, being unable to leave the house, feeling down, worrying about inconveniencing friends, family, or neighbors; or having a relationship be affected by transportation issues.
More than two-fifths of Black residents reported experiencing at least one transportation issue – which was double the amount of white residents who reported the same.
Health and wellness
The survey found that the higher level of education a person had achieved, the better their perception of their own physical and mental health was.
More than half of respondents who had earned a bachelor’s degree or higher rated their health as “very good” or “excellent.”
Comparatively, less than two-fifths of residents who had earned a high school degree, and less than one-quarter of residents who had not completed a high school level education, reported having “very good” or “excellent” physical health. The disparities were similar for mental health.
More than two in five Baltimore-area residents know someone who is addicted to illegal drugs. Of those respondents, 14.5 percent know three or more people who are addicted to illegal drugs.
About the same percentage of Baltimore City and Baltimore County residents know at least one person who is addicted to illegal drugs. But city residents were twice as likely to know three or more people who are addicted.
More than one in four respondents have known a loved one who has died from a drug overdose – a probability that was similar between city and county residents.
Just over one-quarter of Baltimore-area residents had a loved one who died from COVID-19. Black residents were more likely to have lost a loved one from COVID-19 (37.1 percent) than white residents (20.7 percent).
Financial well-being and entrepreneurship
One-fifth of respondents reported going hungry in the past year because they didn’t have enough money for food.
And two-fifths said they run out of food before they get money to buy more.
In the Baltimore area, Black residents were more likely to feel food insecure than white residents.
More than half of Black residents said they experience “low” or “very low” food security. That’s compared to just over 20 percent of white residents who said the same.
About one-fifth of residents had done some kind of “gig” work, like driving for a rideshare app, at some point in their life, including about seven percent who had done a gig within the 30 days before the survey.
The survey found that 23.3 percent of respondents see entrepreneurship as a better path to financial success than working for an established business. Black residents (33 percent) were twice as likely to feel this way compared to white residents (15.2 percent).
Black residents (35.4 percent) were also more likely to consider themselves entrepreneurs than white residents (20.1 percent).
