Albemarle County releases report on well-being, quality of life

Albemarle County, in partnership with The Equity Center at the University of Virginia, announced Monday the publication of the Albemarle County Equity Profile: Centering Equity in Evaluating Well-Being & Quality of Life for Albemarle County Residents.

This profile provides an opportunity for county staff and community members to broaden the understanding of how well-being is experienced in Albemarle. This is the first equity profile prepared about Albemarle County.

“The Equity Profile is a first step in a long journey, but it demonstrates a continued commitment to fully embrace our mission of enhancing well-being and quality of life for our community,” said Siri Russell, director of equity & inclusion for Albemarle County. “This is not just about having a report – staff will use this going forward and how we continue to grow our understanding of and responsiveness to the differing outcomes experienced in our community over time.”

This Equity Profile analyzes various conditions across demographic groups and geographic areas that contribute to well-being, including differences in life expectancy, access to key services like grocery stores and medical care, educational attainment, and cost of living. The Profile also contextualizes the data from this snapshot in time within the history of the county.

“Understanding how the conditions that promote well-being are distributed in the county is necessary to identify gaps in existing service delivery and to develop new policies and models of community engagement that improve the quality of life for all residents,” Russell said.

“We are proud to support Albemarle County in the production of their Equity Profile, and stand ready to help however we can with next steps. Documents like these increase our collective capacity to align actions with values – they are an essential part of a culture of accountability, said Barbara Brown Wilson, faculty director of The Equity Center.

Key findings

• Albemarle County residents generally experience relatively high quality of life compared to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States as a whole.
• Life expectancy at birth differs in Albemarle County by race and location.
• The median household income in Albemarle County in 2019 is $86,399. Median household income by census tract ranges from a low of $41,000, less than half of that for the County overall, to a high of $135,100.
• 42 percent of renters in Albemarle County are cost-burdened or severely cost-burdened, meaning they pay at least 30 percent of their income on housing.