The rate of death from cardiovascular disease per 100,000 residents

Food insecurity is used as a measure of a household’s inability to reliably provide enough food for every person to live an active, healthy life. It is used as an index for the risk of hunger. The food insecurity index is determined annually for each county in the U.S. using a methodology developed by Feeding America based on publicly available demographic and economic data.

High school indicators include literacy, student attendance, accelerated enrollment, pathway completion, and college and career readiness.

Average Medicare reimbursements are used here to estimate health care spending per person in Fulton County. While Medicare reimbursements do not capture spending by everyone receiving health care, it does serve as a useful means of comparing spending between different parts of the U.S. The data used for this measure come from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which calculates average reimbursements per person for U.S. counties using Medicare claims from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Average rates of spending are adjusted for regional differences in prices and for the age, sex and race of the underlying Medicare population.

The high school education rate is the percentage of county residents 25 years or older who have received a high school diploma or a general education development (GED) certificate. A GED certificate is earned by taking a battery of tests and performing at a level equal to or above 60% of high school seniors.

This measure tracks the percentage of people arrested for criminal violations for whom a decision to bring formal charges was made by a prosecutor's office.

Housing affordability burden as measured here represents the percentage of households in Fulton County with annual income less than $20,000 that spend over 30% of their income on the home they own. Paying over 30% of household income on housing presents a significant burden for low income homeowners and leave them with limited income for other essential spending.