by Penelope Fergison, Senior Consultant

Identifying areas with the greatest need for intervention is critical when deciding where to direct limited financial resources, but it can be challenging to do with precision. Social vulnerability indices (SoVIs) offer a solution by simplifying complex policy questions into scores that identify areas with the greatest need for an intervention. Through this process, SoVIs can assist local agencies equitably implement programs by identifying the people and areas with disproportionately high needs that require greater community investment.

A SoVI is typically constructed by aggregating a set of factors identified by research as influencing the incidence of a given public health issue or social problem into a composite index. These factors can range from poverty rates to access to high-speed internet, prevalence of police stops, and food deserts. While a SoVI can help simplify quantitative data to make decisions, they are still only estimates of policy problems and phenomena that are difficult to measure.

SoVIs most commonly assign equal importance to each factor included in the index. However, in cases where a single factor is the most influential, this approach may lead policymakers to ignore a highly vulnerable area. To maximize its reliability, a SoVI should be complemented with qualitative data such as case studies and focus groups with local experts such as policymakers and community members to determine the correct SoVI methodology and to help interpret findings.

RDA has demonstrated how to implement this approach through its work with Contra Costa County’s Probation Department. RDA consulted closely with the Probation Department to develop a SoVI to distribute Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) and Youthful Offender Block Grant (YOBG) funding to school districts with the greatest need for youth interventions. The Probation Department provided feedback and validated the SoVI methodology. Ultimately, RDA and the Probation Department identified 15 relevant factors for the SoVI, ranging from the share of youth experiencing depression, to the share of youth receiving free or reduced cost lunches, and the share of chronic absentee students. RDA standardized these factors based on high school enrollment following comparable justice system formula grants and aggregated the 15 factors with equal weights into a composite index.

You can explore the findings from this JJCPA & YOBG SoVI exercise in a tableau dashboard shared here. The results indicated that the West Contra Costa, Antioch, and Mt. Diablo Unified school districts have the highest need for youth interventions and should receive about two-thirds of available JJCPA & YOBG funding. This interpretation has been validated in discussion with the Probation Department and through RDA’s previous qualitative data collection in the county, speaking with community members during the development of the 2021 Report on Juvenile Justice Programs and Services.

The Contra Costa County JJCPA & YOBG SoVI will be updated annually with an RDA-created data entry tool to ensure accuracy. Along with continued efforts to confirm estimates with local experts, this work will simplify a policy question of where to allocate funding into an actionable set of findings for equity-based implementation.

Following the mixed methods approach outlined here, a SoVI can offer a useful tool for policymakers and administrators to identify areas with the greatest need for intervention while maximizing their impact. Should you wish to develop a SoVI for use at your agency, don’t hesitate to contact RDA. To read more about SoVI, sources and further readings are provided below:

Tate, E. (2012). Social vulnerability indices: A comparative assessment using uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. Natural Hazards, 63. 325-347. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric-Tate-2/publication/257632851_Social_vulnerability_indices_A_comparative_assessment_using_uncertainty_and_sensitivity_analysis/links/57e3246a08aedde5f365a061/Social-vulnerability-indices-A-comparative-assessment-using-uncertainty-and-sensitivity-analysis.pdf
Spielman, S. E., Tuccillo, J., Folch, D.C., Schwikert, A., Davies, R., Wood, N., Tate, E. (2020). Evaluating social vulnerability indicators: Criteria and their application to the Social Vulnerability Index. Natural Hazards, 100, 417-436. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pP0X9X3xEtGVdx-SjErNu24fIdW8YIao/view