Characteristics of Stable and Non-Stable Families in the Morbidity Study in the Eastern Health District of Baltimore

5T HE morbidity study, conducted from June, 1938 to May, 1943, in the original Eastern Health District of Baltimore, is the first investigation of illness where, due in large part to the method of sampling, families with relatively short periods of observation constitute an important part of the total observed population of families. Preliminary analysis of the morbidity experience of the first year of the study indicated that about one-third of the total families either moved out of or into the study area during that period (1). Movement of families continued throughout the five-year period. This paper presents a study of some of the socio-economic characteristics of the moving and non-moving families-characteristics which form a background for forthcoming analyses of illness. Reed, et al. have presented some general characteristics of the population in the Eastern Health District (Wards 6 and 7) from which the morbidity study population was drawn (2). They found that in 1939, 56 per cent of the white families in the district were home owners. They concluded also that "The population is essentially in the lower middle economic class with a greater proportion of skilled and semi-skilled workers 'relatively' than in the rest of the city."