Highlights from the most recent edition of the Cascadia Scorecard. 

The Cascadia Scorecard --Sightline's regional index of progress--shows that northwesterners' health, arguably the most fundamental form of security, continues to improve, slowly but steadily.

A baby born in 2002, the most recent year for which data are available across the entire region, could expect to live past 79 years of age--about a month longer than a baby born in 2001. Life expectancies in Cascadia have grown by nearly four years since 1979.

Life expectancy is the best single measure of a population's health. Lifespan reflects all of the diseases, accidents, and lifestyle choices that shorten people's lives, as well as the effectiveness of medical care.

But health trends vary dramatically across the region, as this life-expectancy map makes clear.

• In fact, urban design has been increasingly linked to many health outcomes, from accident risk, to obesity, to social capital (see these fact sheets). Cascadia Scorecard 2006 focuses on the links between urban design and health.
  
• Compact urban design may also boost health: In highly sprawling US cities, for example, nearly one in ten adults, on average, has a chronic health problem that can be traced to low-density, car-dependent community design.
• The BC advantage: And British Columbia, which boasts the region's most-compact cities, has the region's longest lifespan, about half the obesity rate of the Northwest states, and a one-third lower car-crash fatality rate.
  
• How to improve: The keys to matching or bettering BC's health status are likely enhanced access to medical care and, as important, innovations in economic and social policy that drive lasting reductions in poverty. (See our health solutions section.)