These data are derived from methods adapted from the research of Davies et al. (2018) and Flanagan et al. (2011) which describe 13 metrics for assesing the adaptive capacity of a census tract.

The index comprises 4 domains including:

Socioeconomic Status

• Percent of Persons Below Poverty Level

• Percent of Persons (age 16+) Unemployed

• Per Capita Income

Language & Education

• Percent of Persons With No Highschool Diploma or Equivalent

• Percent of Persons Do Not Who Speak English

Demographics

• Percent of Persons 65 Years of Age or Older

• Percent of Persons 17 Years of Age or Younger

• Percent of Persons 5 Years of Age or Older With a Disability

• Percent of Single Mother Households

Housing & Transportation

• Percent of Persons Living in Multi-Unit Structure

• Percent of Persons Living in a Mobile Home

• Percent of Persons Living in ‘Crowded’ Conditions - more than one person per room

• Percent of Household With No Vehicle Available

• Percent of Persons Residing in Group Quarters

The index is constructed according to Flanagan et al. (2011) by assigning a percentile rank to each of the above named variables, ranked from highest to lowest (excluding per capita income which is ranked from lowest to highest). To calculate the final SVI, the sum for each of the previously calculated percentile ranks is taken for a given blockgroup and the percentile rank of these sums across a given geographic area results in the final SVI score, accordingly, the geographic area and enumeration units used in this equation will effect the final SVI derived for a given area so it is advised that the user consider these factors carefully.

This index and the variables included were produced in R using the package Tidycensus (Walker et al. 2020), the script used to produce this data is provided in this layer package or can be requested from the data distributor. The variable key includes a further description of the variables and the equations used in their calculation.