Table 1.
Area-level composite measures identified in a scoping review of indices and rankings in peer-reviewed literature that estimate the social determinants of health and have publicly accessible data sources, by domains, 2010-2022
| Domain/index | Source | Description | Data format | Disaggregation | Data years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environmental conditions and pollution | |||||
| Air Quality Index | US Environmental Protection Agency | A report of air quality for a particular area and reflects the relative presence of 5 major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide | Integer | County, core-based statistical areas | 1980-2022 |
| Environmental Justice Index | Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry | Considers a combination of environmental, preexisting health, and social conditions to estimate communities at greatest risk for cumulative health effects from environmental impact | Decimal | Census tract | 2022 |
| Environmental Quality Index | US Environmental Protection Agency | Estimates overall environmental quality for communities, leveraging data across 5 domains: air, water, land, built, and sociodemographic | Decimal | County | 2000-2005, 2006-2010 |
| Opportunity and infrastructure | |||||
| American Dream Prosperity Index | The Legatum Institute and The Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream | A measure of community prosperity and the degree to which communities have effective institutions, an open economy, and empowered people | Decimal, ranking | County, state | 2004-2022 |
| Childhood Opportunity Index 2.0 | Data Diversity Kids | Estimates the quality of resources and conditions (socioeconomic, health, environmental, and educational) in communities that are important for child development | Decimal | Census tract | 2010, 2015 |
| National Walkability Index | US Environmental Protection Agency | Provides estimates and rankings for community walkability across the United States | Decimal | Block group | 2019 |
| Ohio Children’s Opportunity Index | Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center and The Ohio State University | Leverages measures of neighborhood conditions and opportunities to estimate overall neighborhood opportunity for children across Ohio | Decimal | Census tract | 2014, 2017 |
| Ohio Opportunity Index | Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center and The Ohio State University | Leverages measures of neighborhood conditions and opportunities to estimate overall neighborhood opportunity across Ohio | Decimal | Census tract | 2016, 2018 |
| The Opportunity Index | Child Trends and The Forum for Youth Investment’s Opportunity Nation | Provides a multidimensional estimate of opportunity for communities, considering opportunity across economic, education, health, and community domains | Decimal | County, state | 2011-2019 |
| Race for Results Index | The Annie E. Casey Foundation | A measure of children’s progress across communities and racial and ethnic groups on key educational, health, and economic milestones | Decimal | State, race, and ethnicity | 2014, 2017 |
| Social Capital Index | Social Capital Project | Estimates familial and community connectedness across communities | Decimal | County, state | 2018 |
| Deprivation and well-being | |||||
| Area Deprivation Index | University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health | Estimates relative neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage for communities; Area Deprivation Index rankings for each community relative to the nation and respective state are available | Integer | Census tract | 2015, 2020 |
| Distressed Community Index | Economic Innovation Group | A tool for measuring comparative economic well-being of communities, factoring in education, housing, occupational, income, and economic conditions in communities | Decimal | ZIP code, county | 2015-2019 |
| Multidimensional Deprivation Index | US Census Bureau | An expansive estimate of well-being that considers deprivation across 6 dimensions: standard of living, education, health, economic security, housing quality, and neighborhood quality | Decimal | County | 2017 |
| Neighborhood Deprivation Index | National Cancer Institute | Estimates community deprivation, factoring 4 dimensions of socioeconomic status: wealth and income, education, occupation, and housing conditions | Decimal | Census tract | 2020 |
| Social Deprivation Index | Robert Graham Center | A composite measure of area-level deprivation based on community characteristics related to education, poverty, housing, employment, and transportation | Decimal | Census tract, county, primary care shortage areas, ZIP code tabulation areas | 2012-2019 |
| COVID-19 | |||||
| COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index | Surgo Ventures | An estimate of a community’s resilience to the health, economic, and social consequences of COVID-19 in the absence of appropriate response and support | Percentile | County | 2020 |
| COVID-19 Pandemic Vulnerability Index | National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences | An estimate of community vulnerability developed from inputs related to virus transmission and outcomes and conditions that may predispose communities to have adverse outcomes | Decimal | County | 2020-2022 |
| COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage Index | Surgo Ventures | A measure of the expected difficulty a community may face in achieving rapid, widespread COVID-19 vaccine coverage | Decimal | County, state | 2021 |
| Rurality | |||||
| Index of Relative Rurality | Purdue University | A continuous, threshold-free, unit-free measure of rurality | Decimal | County | 2000, 2010 |
| Food insecurity | |||||
| Map the Meal Gap | Feeding America | Estimates food insecurity for the overall population and children at multiple geographic levels | Decimal | State, county, congressional district | 2011-2022 |
| Emergency response and community resilience | |||||
| Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities | University of South Carolina–Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute | An estimate of community disaster resilience, factoring social, economic, community capital, institutional, infrastructural, and environmental county characteristics | Decimal | County | 2015, 2010 |
| Community Resilience Estimates | US Census Bureau | Measures neighborhood risk to disasters, including COVID-19, by leveraging restricted census microdata, which are otherwise absent in other estimates of resilience | Decimal | Census tract, county | 2018, 2019 |
| Minority Health Social Vulnerability Index | Office of Minority Health | An expansion of the Social Vulnerability Index in areas related to racial and ethnic minority status and language and also considers inputs associated with COVID-19 outcomes | Decimal | County | 2021 |
| National Health Security Preparedness Index | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Kentucky | A broad measure of the health protections in place in each state that are needed to keep people safe in the face of large-scale public health threats | Decimal | National, state | 2003-2021 |
| National Risk Index | Federal Emergency Management Agency | A measure of the community risk to 18 natural disasters; the measure considers historic economic losses due to natural disasters as well as social and community factors that may influence the extent to which disasters affect communities | Percentile | Census tract, county | 2020-2023 |
| Social Vulnerability Index | Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry | An estimate of community vulnerability to disasters (natural, disease, human-made) | Percentile | County, congressional district | 2000, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018 |
| Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards Index | University of South Carolina | An estimate of community social vulnerability to environmental hazards | Decimal | County | 2014 |
| Health | |||||
| California Healthy Places Index | Public Health Alliance of Southern California | Provides an estimate of health and the social conditions that drive health for areas in California | Decimal | Census tract, county, ZIP code, and others | 2022 (HPI 3.0) |
| County Health Rankings and Roadmaps | University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Estimates and ranks county health and well-being based on factors related to health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment | Ranking | County | 2010-2022 |
| Healthiest Communities Ranking | US News & World Report | A ranking of counties and county equivalents based on inputs relating to population health, equity, education, economy, housing, food and nutrition, environment, public safety, community vitality, and infrastructure | Ranking | State, county | 2022 |