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   Part J. Evaluating Community Programs and Initiatives
      Chapter 38. Some Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Communi... >
         Section 10. Community-Level Indicators: Some Examples >
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Community-Level Indicators: Some Examples
  

Main Section

 Contributed by Phil Rabinowitz Edited by Bill Berkowitz

What are community-level indicators?

 

How might you use community-level indicators?

 

How do you choose community-level indicators?

 

Examples of community-level indicators in a variety of fields

 

The Payneside Health-for-All Coalition wanted to know how well its effort to make health services more accessible to everyone in the community was going.  Members of the coalition knew that if they just asked people about their satisfaction with access to health care they might not get accurate information, because the responses would be influenced by community members’ ideas of what constituted good health care, whether they felt pressure to imply that they were more careful about their health than they actually were, and even by the fact that they were asked. 

The Coalition instead chose some community-level indicators to tell them what they wanted to know.  They got information about the number of community health clinic visits for people of various ages, and how many visits to the sliding-scale clinics were of patients who could afford to pay little or nothing.  They also tracked the number of community residents who received free care at local hospitals, the number of seniors who received subsidized home care, and other statistics that didn’t depend on anyone’s opinion, memory, or choice about what to report.  As a result, Health-for-All learned that a larger number of citizens were, in fact, seeking regular health care, and that the Coalition’s work had borne fruit.  Using community-level indicators had helped the Coalition provide community members with better access to services.

In the previous section, Gathering and Using Community-Level Indicators, we introduced community-level indicators, and briefly discussed why and when they can be used and how to gather them.  The section included a number of examples of possible community-level indicators for different issues: substance abuse, teen pregnancy prevention, tobacco control, injury prevention, and violence prevention.  In this section, we’ll explain further how to identify and choose community-level indicators to fit your needs, and give some guidance as to what kinds of indicators you might look for in a given field.

 

What are community-level indicators?

Community-level indicators are measures that refer to population groups rather than individuals.  (They indicate – i.e., show – what’s happening at the community level, rather than the individual level.)   In the example above, the coalition didn’t collect information from individuals, but looked at objective information that told about the actions of a large number of people.  A similar example would be monitoring smoking by tracking the sales of cigarettes in the community, rather than by polling people to find out how many cigarettes each person smoked daily.  We’ll give many more examples later in this section.

Community-level indicators can range from the very specific and focused – the rate of drunk-driving deaths in motor vehicle accidents – to the more subtle and indirect – the amount of shelf space devoted to alcoholic beverages in local supermarkets, or the percentage of local restaurant patrons ordering non-alcoholic beverages.   All the community-level indicators you use, however, should have some things in common.

They should be:

  • Relevant to the issue at hand.  Monitoring bicycle sales won’t tell you much about tobacco use, but it might be related to heart-attack prevention or the use of open space.

  • Available.  There has to be a way to find the information you’re looking for.  If you can’t collect or find the data relatively easily yourself, and no one else is keeping track, then this particular indicator isn’t a good choice.

  • Chosen by the citizens or groups who’ll use the indicator information.  The use of community-level indicators is most likely to be effective, and to yield the best information, when it’s part of a participatory process.

  • Usable in practice.  The whole point of choosing community-level indicators is to use them to inform and guide your work.  If they can’t be used in practice, they’re not the ones you want.

  • Statistically measurable.  The easiest way to show that your information is important is to subject it to statistical measurement.  If you can demonstrate, for instance, that alcohol-related traffic deaths have significantly declined since the beginning of your anti-drunk-driving campaign, that’s pretty good evidence that your initiative is having an effect.  Ideally, your indicators should also be ones that can show a trend – whether the indicator is increasing or decreasing over time – rather than ones that are either “on” or “off.”

  • Logically or scientifically defensible.  You must be able to convince people that the link between your indicators and the issue they concern is real.  In some cases – as in the drunk-driving deaths example above – it’s obvious.  In others, it may take the results of previous scientific studies to show the connection.  It took many decades and a lot of science, for instance, to firmly establish the relationship between various medical and environmental problems and pollutants in the air and water.

  • Reliable.  Not only do you have to be able to collect the information – you have to be reasonably certain that it’s accurate.  Either you have to get it yourself, or get it from a source that you know you can trust.

  • Leading.  The “leading indicators” that you hear about on the (usually financial) news are indicators that tell you what’s coming.  If they change, it usually means that the rest of that category will make the same changes soon.  If you can identify leading community-level indicators, you can use them to predict trends relating to your issue. 

  • Policy-relevant.  The reason for measuring community-level indicators is often to bring about change.  That may be change within an organization or field in the way an issue is handled, or change in the government’s response to and regulation of it.  In either case, the indicator has to be one that demonstrates the necessity for change, and helps point to the kind of change that’s needed.

  • Reflective of community values.  You’re unlikely to gain support for what you’re doing if the outcomes you’re looking for aren’t in line with what the community thinks is right.

There are, of course, exceptions here.  Civil rights workers and the African-American community had to oppose community values in the South (and sometimes elsewhere as well) in the 1960’s to secure equal rights for all.  They didn’t have the support of their local communities, but they did have both the Constitution and the federal government on their side, as well as the weight of decency and fairness.

  • Attractive to the local media.  The more interesting and newsworthy your indicators are, the more likely the local media are to report on them and publicize your cause.

Some general considerations

1.  As we’ve already mentioned, good community-level indicators can take several forms.  Sometimes, what seem to be the most obvious aren’t as useful as they seem.  We all know, for instance, that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer, so measuring lung cancer rates in a community ought to tell us about smoking rates.  Well, they do – they tell us about smoking rates 20 or 30 years ago, because that’s how long it may take many cancers to develop.  The same is true for heart attacks and cholesterol – the current condition of your heart reflects your eating and exercise habits of 20 years ago as much as your current ones.  It’s important, therefore, to pick indicators that tell you about current conditions (unless what you want to know is how many people are currently affected, or what happened 20 years ago).

2.  A second consideration is that unusual connections may give you important information.  An increase in the shelf space that supermarkets devote to healthy foods says something about people’s concerns about diet, for instance, and may reflect the adoption of healthier lifestyles.  A sharp decline in restaurants offering souvenir matchbooks may have something to do with a decline in tobacco use.  A rise in school absences because of “accidents” may signal an increase in child abuse.  Try to think creatively about what indicators might be possible.

3.  A final concern has to do with being able to collect and use the information.  Do you have the resources to do so?  If you’re collecting information yourself, you need the people to do it, and they have to understand exactly what it is they’re looking for.  You may need money to pay them, or you may have to pay for data you get from outside sources.  You may need a lot of time to find what you’re looking for, or particular skills to make it mean something.  Choose indicators that are within your ability to collect and measure.

The number of indicators you choose is also a factor here.  You may be able to think of a large number of indicators that would give you useful information.  Keep it simple – think beforehand about how long it will take you to collect and analyze the information you get, and keep the number of indicators at a level that you can comfortably handle.

 

How might you use community-level indicators?

Although this chapter is specifically about evaluation, community-level indicators can be useful in a number of ways.  In addition to the evaluation of your own intervention or initiative, you can apply them to a community assessment, to the accountability of other organizations or institutions, or to efforts to change policy.

1.  Community assessment.  Community-level indicators can be useful in community assessments for different purposes.  An assessment to identify community issues and problems, for instance, might rely on such indicators as the incidence of a disease or medical condition either in the community at large, or in a particular social, ethnic, or geographic group.  The number of children receiving free or reduced-price school lunches, or the number of schools instituting breakfast programs can speak volumes about the community’s economic problems, or about child hunger.  The frequency of work absences due to respiratory ailments may reflect poor air quality.  Even something as seemingly harmless as the sales figures for bandannas may highlight a problem, if the sales of gang-identified colors outstrip all others. 

Community population trends might be tracked by the growth in ethnic stores and organizations, in help-wanted ads looking for fluency in particular languages, or in bilingual classes in schools.  These kinds of measures are often used in needs assessment – determining where to direct community efforts.  Fast growth in a language minority population might underscore the need for new school programs, adult language classes, interpreters in courts, government offices, and medical facilities, etc.

Community-level indicators can also provide information about the effects of community projects and initiatives.  The results of an expansion of the public transportation system might be measured not only in the number of riders, but in the number of good air-quality days, the volume of business in neighborhoods newly served by the expansion, and increases in the openings of restaurants and clubs in those neighborhoods.  

An interesting way to employ community-level indicators is in understanding how to reach people – to educate them to an issue, to ask for contributions, to publicize your service.  If the number of households subscribing to newspapers is small, for instance, or if one paper in a community far outsells another, that should tell you something about how to reach the largest number of people.  Knowing how many people attend sporting events or watch sports on TV may also be helpful, as may knowing the most popular radio station among those you’re interested in reaching.  (A heavy-metal or hip-hop station would be more likely to reach drop-outs; a public radio station specializing in news and classical music might be more likely to attract potential contributors.)

2.  Accountability.  Community-level indicators, by providing evidence of the process, progress, and outcomes of initiatives or projects, can help hold accountable those whose responsibility those initiatives and projects are. A community initiative to provide more affordable housing might be measured, for instance, by the number of affordable housing units available, or the average per-room or per-square-foot rental cost for residential property in the community.  Politicians’ claims of economic prosperity can be checked by looking at the community’s unemployment rate, average wage for workers, occupation rate for business and industrial buildings, etc.  The success of a road project meant to reduce congestion can be measured by comparing the traffic on the new road to traffic on similar, unimproved roads in the community.

Community-level indicators can also monitor accountability of another kind.  The number of complaints of police brutality, or claims by minority citizens of false arrest might indicate a problem with over-enthusiastic law enforcement or racial profiling.  The number of car insurance claims for damage inflicted because of potholes or unsafe road conditions might reflect on the efficiency of the highway department.  Reductions in ridership on public transportation could be a result of poor service, overcrowded conditions on buses, or a bad choice of routes on the part of the transportation authority.

1.  Evaluation.  You’re most likely to use community-level indicators to measure your progress toward the outcomes you’re aiming at.  A substance-abuse initiative, for example, might look at admissions to treatment programs for signs of progress.  Outcomes might be measured by such indicators as drug-and-alcohol-related arrests, emergency-room admissions related to substance abuse, underage drunk-driving incidents, and the price and availability of street drugs.

It’s also possible in some circumstances to use community-level indicators to evaluate your process (i.e., whether you are actually doing what you intended to in order to achieve the desired results).  If part of a youth violence-prevention effort’s strategy is to convince schools to institute peer conflict resolution, it might measure the number of peer mediators trained in school-based or -related programs.  (A related indicator of progress would be the total number of conflict-resolution sessions those mediators conducted, and an outcome indicator might be the number of in-school or school-related violent incidents.)

4.  Policy change.  Community-level indicators can help determine where policy change is needed, and whether a change in policy is having the desired effect.  Many states and communities, for example, have reformed property tax laws to help seniors and lower-income people stay in the homes they have owned for many years.  These reforms came about because of (community-level) indications that these groups were being forced out of their homes by high taxes.  Checking the records of home sales in the community two years before and two years after such reforms might tell you whether fewer seniors and lower-income residents are selling their homes, or at least whether the neighborhoods formerly most affected are becoming more stable.

How do you choose community-level indicators?

With the above information in mind, how exactly do you decide which community-level indicators to use, and what do you do with them?  A brief step-by-step outline might go like this:

1.  Decide on just what your goals are in using community-level indicators.  In other words, what exactly is it you want to find out?  Let’s say you’re engaged in a clean-air initiative.  Your goals in this case might be to determine the air quality in your community, and whether the campaign is successful in bringing about an improvement.

2.  Determine what kinds of information you’d need to achieve your goals. You’d want to assess the nature of the problem as it currently exists, which means looking at such issues as the amount of respiratory illness in the community, the actual quality of the air, the amount of air pollution caused by local industries, etc.  The same issues could be examined later to find out how successful you were, and what else might need to be done.

3.  Choose community-level indicators that reflect the information you want, and that can be measured, so that they can be compared, and give you real information to work with.  Some community-level indicators you might choose in this case are the number of emergency-room visits to local hospitals for respiratory problems such as asthma; the number of days when the Air Quality Index (a federal standard of air pollution that’s measured daily for every locality in the U.S.) rates your community as less than “good” or “moderate;” the number of local industries that fail to meet federal clean air standards; and average visibility.  All of these might be compared to similar measurements in other cities with similar climates and industries.

4.  Measure the indicators and analyze the results.  You might find that, while respiratory problems are practically an epidemic, and smog is extremely serious, local industries are, for the most part, either meeting or doing better than federal standards.  That may mean that your efforts should focus on such areas as automobile use and lobbying the federal government to regulate emissions from industries in neighboring areas and states.

5.  By continuing to use the indicators you’ve chosen, and adding others that make sense, you can evaluate your efforts, and make changes where needed.  If you’re trying to reduce automobile use, for example, you might use such indicators as the number of vehicle miles traveled, the number of car trips carrying only a single person, the total of daily commuter miles, the number of people using public transportation, etc.  If none of these numbers change, you know you have to come up with a different strategy. 

 

Examples of community-level indicators in a variety of fields

We’ve already given a number of concrete examples of community-level indicators in various fields, in addition to those included in the previous section.  Rather than simply listing more specific examples here, we’ll try to examine a number of areas – health, human services and education, community development, public safety, the environment – and point out some more general types of community-level indicators that could be used as starting points.  You might use or adapt some of these indicators for your own work.  Additionally, if you have community-level indicators that are not listed here and you would like to share them with us, please email us at toolbox@ku.edu.

Many of these indicators  are most useful when compared to past figures or figures from other similar communities, when monitored over time, or when looked at as a percentage or proportion of the population.  These figures are often stated as “per 100,000 (or 1,000) people”.  Thus, if there are 20 cases of lung cancer in a community of 10,000, the number might be stated as “a rate of 200 cases per 100,000.”  In that way, the figures can be reasonably compared with those of communities of any size.

None of the lists of indicators that follow is complete, by any means.  They’re barely a start, in fact.  There are thousands of possible indicators, and these are just meant to help you think about the possible measures you might use as community-level indicators in your particular situation.

Health

Health covers a range of areas – wellness promotion and health maintenance, disease and injury prevention, detecting and addressing medical issues unique to the community, and providing health services to all who need them.  We’ll try to address each of these separately, realizing that there is, in reality, a huge amount of overlap among them.

1. Wellness promotion and health maintenance.  Research shows that healthy eating, regular exercise, and stress reduction contribute to a longer and better-quality life.  In addition, most people benefit from regular health maintenance and monitoring – visits to health professionals, care about exposure to dangerous conditions or substances, etc.  Some community-level indicators of the attention that people in the community are paying to those factors:

  • Sales of sports and fitness equipment and clothing.
  • Numbers of gyms/pools/health clubs and those using them.
  • Shelf space devoted to healthy and/or organic products and foods in mainstream supermarkets.
  • Shelf space in stores devoted to tobacco.
  • Number of liquor stores in the community.
  • The number and frequency of use of healthy food stores (Whole Foods Markets, etc.)
  • Sales of bottled water, as compared to soda.
  • The mileage of bike paths and hiking/running trails, compared to road miles in the community.
  • Number of media mentions of or articles about maintaining healthy lifestyles.
  • Average number of prenatal doctor visits for pregnant women (as reported by medical practices and clinics)
  • Percentage of adults engaging in regular health maintenance activities – annual physicals, regular dental care, eye exams, etc. (as reported by medical practices and clinics).
  • Percentage of children engaging in regular health maintenance activities (as reported by medical practices and clinics).

2.  Disease and injury prevention.  Unlike most wellness and health maintenance activities, disease and injury prevention involves taking specific measures to stave off or minimize the effects of specific diseases and conditions.  There are many community-level indicators that point up the extent to which these behaviors are being practiced.

  • Condom sales, especially among teens. These might be related to the incidence of  sexually-transmitted diseases (STD’s), including HIV, and might also relate to teen pregnancy rates.
  • The establishment and use of needle exchange programs, to prevent HIV among intravenous drug users.
  • The number of peer health educators trained.
  • The percentage of schools providing sex education (and the average age of students in sex education classes).
  • The number of homeless people tested for TB and other infectious diseases.
  • The percentage of the over-65 population inoculated for flu.
  • The percentage of children registering for school with proof of all recommended inoculations.
  • Funds devoted to community vermin-extermination programs.
  • The existence and enforcement of laws on lead paint eradication.
  • The number of people receiving regular cancer screenings – mammograms, Pap smears, prostate antigen tests, colonoscopies, etc.
  • Sales of sun block, bike helmets, safety goggles, ear plugs, and similar protective substances or equipment.
  • Percentage of people cited for lack of seatbelt and child car seat use.

This indicator is tricky, since, in most states, drivers are only cited for these infractions if they’re stopped for another violation.  It may be that drivers who disobey other traffic laws are also more likely to disregard the use of seat belts and car seats.  If that’s the case, then their use would actually be more frequent than this measure tells you.

  • The existence and enforcement of local laws, as well as OSHA  regulations, regarding safety in the workplace. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is the U.S. government agency that oversees workplace safety.

3.   Detecting and addressing health issues unique to the community.  Any community may have unique health needs, stemming from the prevalence of a particular disease or condition, or from a threat to the community’s health.  The causes here may range from the environmental – pollution of drinking water, poor air quality, chemicals in  the soil, etc. – to the genetic – a large population of an ethnic group that’s susceptible to a certain disease – to the cultural – a population at risk of heart attack because of a traditional diet high in saturated fat.  Examining some community-level indicators can help you find and deal with these kinds of conditions.

  • Results of free community screenings and regular screenings by medical practices and clinics for blood pressure and cholesterol, HIV/AIDS, TB, various cancers, neurological conditions, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.
  • The number of miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects, both for the community as a whole and for specific populations.
  • The number of hospital admissions and/or deaths resulting from particular diseases or conditions – certain cancers, diabetes, HIV-related illnesses, etc.
  • The geography of various diseases and conditions in the community – whether they are centered in identifiable areas, and what the circumstances in those areas are.
  • The number of meals eaten at fast-food restaurants.
  • The incidence of obesity in children (as reported by medical practices and clinics).
  • The frequency of emergency room visits for asthma attacks, particularly among children.
  • Infant mortality rate, low-birthweight babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, etc.
  • The results of testing for lead levels in children.
  • The average number of cavities per childhood dental visit.
  • Number of children’s visits to mental health facilities.

4.  Providing health services to all who need them.  A community may have excellent health services, but if many people are unable to take advantage of them – because of cost, difficulty of access, or some other reason – then they do those people no good.  Community-based indicators can tell you whether there’s a large segment of your community that’s denied proper health care.

  • Percentage of uninsured families in the community.
  • The annual amount of free care provided by hospitals and medical practices.
  • The number of free or sliding-fee-scale clinics, and their rate of use.
  • The number of families using the emergency room as their primary care provider (as reported by emergency room intake data).
  • The number of elders receiving in-home health and care services.
  • Number of hospital beds, physicians, physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, treatment programs, etc. for each person in the community.  (How do these figures compare with those in other similar communities?  Are they adequate for the needs of your community?)
  • Medical services available to the homeless.
  • Average waiting time to obtain non-emergency medical services – for regular checkups, follow-ups, chronic conditions, etc.
  • Number of people using family planning services.
  • Handicapped accessibility of health facilities – hospitals, clinics, medical buildings and practices, dentists’ offices, optometrists, etc.
  • Availability of ambulance and emergency medical services, particularly in rural areas.
  • Availability of interpreters in various languages at health facilities.

Human services and education

Human services span a broad range of activities, from substance abuse treatment and violence prevention to providing heating oil subsidies and building affordable housing.  They include such activities and services as welfare; homeless and emergency aid services; job training and retraining; youth development; community-based mediation; counseling and other mental health services; subsidized day care (which also fits under the umbrella of education); violence prevention; services for seniors, the developmentally delayed, and the disabled (housing, home care, transportation, etc.); providing support to new immigrants and language minorities; and safeguarding citizens’ civil and legal rights, especially the rights of those who can’t afford to pay lawyers.  And these are only a fraction of the possibilities.

Education encompasses not only public education, from kindergarten to grade 12 (including special education for those with learning disabilities, or with physical, developmental, or psychological handicaps), and state-sponsored and -funded post-secondary systems, but also adult literacy and adult education (including language classes for immigrants), pre-school, after-school programs, alternative schools, and, to an increasing extent, distance learning (Internet, TV, or  video-based instruction).

Community-level indicators in all the possible specific categories are far too numerous to list individually.  Rather, we’ll try to look at some more general categories, and provide ideas about what you might look for.

An indicator that cuts across virtually all categories is the attention paid by the media to particular issues.  One way to judge whether your effort is having any impact, or whether an issue is one that ‘s important to the community, is by the amount of attention it gets in the local media.  If stories about the issue keep running over a period of time, the chances are that it’s something people are interested in, or that the media are concerned enough about to keep pushing.

1.  Human services aimed at children and youth.  Whether you’re using indicators to explore what needs to be done, or to evaluate what has been done, there are areas that will probably prove important: kids’ economic conditions, their school achievement, employment, family status, use of services, etc.  Some types of indicators to consider:

  • Children’s family income: number below the poverty; within 150% of poverty; 200% of poverty; number eligible for free school lunches, subsidized child care, and other programs dependent on income.

The U.S. federal poverty guidelines are updated annually. They are meant to define poverty, but don’t really represent the level at which a family is able to get by on its income alone.  Although it sets separate guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii, which are known, because of their isolation, to be more expensive, the government doesn’t make allowances for people living in an expensive urban area, or for the need for transportation in rural areas, for instance.  The guidelines are usually low, and a great number of families that must struggle to pay for both food and shelter are far above them.  As a result, eligibility for many federal and state services is set at 150% or 200% of poverty.

  • Family status: percentages of children living with two parents, one parent, other family members, in state custody (foster homes and institutions).
  • Number of children under 18 involved with the juvenile court system: complaints, arrests, involvement in violent crimes, delinquency petitions, court referrals because of uncontrollable behavior.

This last goes by different names in different states, but boils down to parents or guardians referring children – usually young teens – to the court system because the kids are beyond their parents’ control, and are doing things likely to harm themselves or others. 

  • Number of children under 18 in residential or lock-up programs.
  • Frequency of child abuse and neglect – physical and sexual assault, abandonment, negligent parenting, etc. – as measured by emergency room reports, police files, state child welfare departments, and relevant human service agencies.
  • Membership in Parents Anonymous or similar support groups for abusive or potentially abusive parents, number of Parent Education programs available, and enrollment in those programs.
  • Number of families with children seen by various agencies – emergency services, food bank, free health clinics, mental health services, rehabilitation, fuel assistance, child care, families-at-risk, pregnant and parenting teens, etc.
  • Young children (under 12) unaccompanied by an adult counted on the street after 10:00 p.m. on week nights, or similar measures of lack of adult supervision.  (as reported by observation in various neighborhoods)
  • Employment rate of youth 16 to 18.
  • Number of 16-and-under youth seeking family planning services.
  • Number of under-21 referrals to drug and alcohol treatment programs.
  • Availability of outreach and services for homeless youth, and numbers served.

2.  Emergency and similar services.  Emergency services are essentially those services necessary to sustain health and/or life for people without the resources to continue to do so for themselves.  The reasons for their inability may stem from disaster – an earthquake or flood, a house fire, a disabling accident or catastrophic illness, a violent crime, a bank failure – or from longer-term poverty or disability.  Whatever the cause, people may be unable to provide themselves with food, clothing, shelter, or other necessities, such as basic furniture or heat.  Community-level indicators can measure both the extent of the need for these services and their effectiveness.

  • The extent of homelessness in the community – admissions to shelters, winter counts of sleepers in the open, soup-kitchen meals served, numbers of homeless people spending the day in libraries and other accessible indoor spaces, number of homeless families.
  • Number of people on welfare or disability income.
  • Patronage of food banks and other food-distribution centers, surplus food eligibility, number of people receiving food stamps, number of people fed at the Salvation Army.
  • Number of families on fuel assistance.
  • Length of waiting lists for various types of subsidized housing, availability of affordable housing in the community, average percentage of income paid for shelter by people on public assistance.
  • Number of people in subsidized assisted living situations, and the number waiting to be placed.
  • Admissions to shelters and other services – counseling, placement in a new area, job training – for victims of domestic violence.
  • Number of people seen by emergency mental health services.

3.  “Second-level” human services.  These are services that involve quality of life, rather than immediate physical survival or health, but, as a result, often address the underlying causes of problems, where emergency services, of necessity, may only address the symptoms. 

  • Number of people enrolled in employment readiness, training, or retraining programs.
  • The percentage of people in the community who are unemployed.
  • The number of adults enrolled in, and/or waiting for a place in, adult literacy, basic education, or majority-language-learning programs, as well as the percentage of adults in the community lacking high school diplomas.
  • Number of child care slots available for low-income families.
  • Availability of public transportation, or other means of affordable transportation for those without cars, especially in rural areas and for seniors and individuals with disabilities.
  • Availability – and waiting lists for – independent or assisted living facilities or services, or other housing dedicated to seniors and people with disabilities.
  • Availability and use of community mediation.  This title covers divorce and family mediation, landlord-tenant disputes, small claims, conflicts among neighbors or organizations, etc.  Community mediation is meant both to demonstrate better ways to resolve conflict, and to relieve the burden on an overworked court system.
  • Number of complaints of discrimination reported and/or investigated.  These might include discrimination in the workplace, for instance, in housing, or in the granting of bank loans.
  • Availability of affordable (usually sliding fee-scale) community mental health services.
  • Availability and use of transition services for those recently released from prison.  These are services that help recently-released inmates find housing, employment, and support.  They tend to reduce the chances that the ex-offender will return to jail.  
  • Availability and use of support services for retarded adults.
  • Handicapped accessibility to various services and agencies.

A major element of human services in most communities is addressing substance abuse.  It is difficult to put indicators for substance abuse treatment in a specific category.  They fall under health, under safety, under youth services…practically anyplace you want to put them.  In any case, the number of drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs available, and the number of people enrolled or waiting to be enrolled in them are important community-level indicators, as are many indicators already listed – drunken driving statistics, for instance.

4.  Education.  From pre-school to college, as well as non-traditional education.  There’s usually an emphasis here on publicly-funded or otherwise universally-available education, so that private schools and colleges are not part of the mix, except insofar as they offer scholarships or the equivalent.  Many private schools in smaller towns, for instance, offer free tuition to local youth who can meet admission standards.

  • Number of slots in affordable pre-school programs – Head Start, subsidized pre-school slots for low-income families, school district early education programs.
  • School status: dropout rate, number of children in grades 3-12 more than one grade level behind in reading or math.
  • Number of suspensions from school at elementary, middle, and high school levels.
  • Existence of, and enrollment in, bilingual and other programs aimed at helping immigrant children.
  • Class size, age and condition of public school buildings, teacher pay scale, amount spent per pupil, and other indications of community commitment to education.
  • Private schools and colleges offering scholarships or free tuition earmarked for local youth.
  • The percentage of children attending private or parochial schools.
  • Availability of, and number of students attending, alternative high schools, charter schools, and home schooling.
  • Services offered to home-schooling families.
  • Number of local graduates attending college.
  • Availability of affordable post-secondary education – community college, state university system, etc.
  • Community scholarships for post-secondary education available to residents.
  • Number of Pell Grant recipients.  The Pell Grant is a federal grant for undergraduate post-secondary education, distributed on the basis of financial need and calculated according to the cost of a student’s education and the number of courses she’s taking.
  • Free or reduced-fee courses offered to seniors and/or the community at large by local post-secondary or other institutions.
  • Handicapped accessibility to educational facilities.

Community development

Community development is usually thought of as embracing only the economic sphere.  Like our other categories, however, community development includes a number of areas, spanning the economic, the social/demographic, and the cultural.  (It could easily include public safety and the environment as well, but we’ve chosen to consider those separately.)  Depending on your purpose, you may want to examine any one, or some combination of these areas.

1.  Economic.  You may be looking at the economic development of the community as a whole (bringing in new business, increasing employment and the tax base, etc.), or that of specific groups within it.  If you’re conducting an assessment or trying to influence policy, you may be looking for the areas – geographic, demographic, or otherwise – of greatest need or greatest potential.  Community-level indicators can help in all of these cases.

  • The number of downtown businesses, as well as empty storefronts or offices.
  • Local revenue from taxes and fees.
  • Occupancy rate for business and industrial buildings, and rental cost per square foot for such space.
  • Total commercial real estate sales, and average sale prices for various kinds of commercial real estate (offices, industrial space, warehouses, retail stores, etc.)
  • The number of new commercial buildings being constructed.
  • The number of new businesses starting annually, and the number of business failures or bankruptcies each year.
  • The percentage of local businesses and industries that are locally owned.
  • The average wage and average commute to work of local residents.
  • The default rate on local business and mortgage loans.
  • The average price of a single-family house.
  • The percentage of residents who own their own homes.
  • The unemployment rate.
  • People entering the workforce.
  • People leaving public assistance.
  • The percentage of people in poverty – below the poverty line and/or homeless or receiving public assistance.
  • The percentage of children receiving free school lunches. 
  • The mean (average) and median income, and the median education level.

The median is the point at which half of all the numbers you examined are above it, and the other half below.  If the median education level is the end of 12th grade, then half of those you looked at have less than that amount of education, and half have more.

2.  Social/demographic.  The social indicators of community development have to do both with how people relate to one another in the community, and what people do as groups to participate in the community and hold it together.  Demographic indicators describe the community’s residents – their ethnic, gender, age, and racial diversity, their geographic distribution, etc.  Social indicators are important in understanding how people are connected to one another, as well as how they sometimes discriminate against or distrust one another.  Demographic indicators help to understand population shifts, changes in the nature of the community, and what services might be needed for particular groups.

  • Number of service clubs, fraternal organizations, churches, and other gathering points.
  • Political participation – percent of citizens voting, number of people who actually participate in a political event or campaign.
  • The number of single-parent families, and of children living with caregivers other than their parents.
  • The diversity of the population – number and size of various ethnic and racial groups, number of ethnic societies and organizations, number of kids under 18 – and population trends – how these numbers have changed in the past year, five years, ten years.
  • Where various groups live, if they aren’t dispersed evenly throughout the community, and whether different groups mix socially and otherwise.

In some cases, the mixing, or lack of mixing of groups is obvious.  In many cities, for instance, you’re not likely to find many white people in black neighborhoods unless they work there, and there are many white neighborhoods where the same is true for African-Americans.  In other cities, however, many neighborhoods are racially mixed, workplaces seem fully integrated, and groups on the street reflect the diversity of the community.  The real question is whether this apparent mixing goes on after work hours as well, or whether people of different races or backgrounds are pleasant to one another, but rarely become real friends, or join the same efforts or organizations.  If you’re engaged in an anti-racism campaign, whether people from different backgrounds develop real relationships in the community is an important indicator.

  • Support (in contributions) for community-based organizations.
  • Volunteer hours worked per year in the community.
  • The number of community activist and citizen advocacy groups and organizations (block associations, groups organized for a specific task, watchdog or oversight groups, policy change advocates, etc.)

3.  Cultural.  “Cultural” is used here to refer to both “culture” in the sense of arts, entertainment, and knowledge (which are, in fact, the passing on of the valued products of the majority culture), and “culture” in the sense of the customs and world view of the various ethnic, racial, and religious groups in the community.  The availability of culture in both senses adds tremendously to citizens’ quality of life.

  • Number of performance centers in the community – theaters, concert halls, clubs, etc.
  • Average number of low-cost or free performances (music, dance, theater, film, readings) available in any given week.  These may be staged by the community, by organizations, by schools or colleges, by businesses.
  • Number of community theater productions, community chorus concerts, and other similar performances by community residents.
  • Number of school programs introducing the arts and other topics – astronomy, for example, or wildlife study – to children who may have little chance for contact with them.
  • Availability – in school and otherwise – of affordable learning opportunities in the arts for children.
  • The number of free and/or affordable classes in the arts and other subjects for adults.

The Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts offers a wide range of courses, from cooking to advanced language learning to starting a business, for fees that often average well under $10.00 a week.  Many school districts offer adult education at low rates in a variety of fields.

  • Number and character of museums in the community (and the number of visitors they receive.)
  • Availability of the public library – hours, number of branches, accessibility, etc. – and its use.
  • The number of after-school and summer recreation programs for children and youth.
  • Number of ethnic and religious festivals and other such multi-cultural events.
  • The diversity of local radio and TV programming – the number of programs or stations broadcasting in particular languages, or broadcasting music or other programming of interest to particular groups in the community.
  • The extent to which the community’s appearance, businesses, and amenities reflect its diversity of cultures.

Public safety

Since 2001, public safety, in many cities, at least, has come to mean more than police protection or earthquake-proof buildings.  It also means safety from terrorism, which, in turn, raises issues of privacy and civil rights when “protection” becomes too vigorous.  As with health, the most effective way to ensure public safety is to take preventive measures long before any threat exists.  It’s good strategy to provide productive alternatives to gangs and drugs, and to develop warm relationships with youth before youth violence becomes a problem, for example.

In the examples of community-level indicators below, we offer measures of  prevention, of the balance between safety and civil liberties, and of traditional public safety activities.

  • The existence of emergency management plans, earthquake-, hurricane-, or tornado-proofing in buildings (in areas where that’s necessary), flood control measures, and other hedges against natural disasters.
  • The number of fire stations and/or firefighters (in the case of volunteer departments) available to respond to fires and other emergencies, as well as the average response times in various neighborhoods.
  • The existence of neighborhood watch programs, good street and building lighting, businesses open till late in the evening, police on foot patrol, and other deterrents to crime.
  • Number of people on the street at night.
  • Relationship between the police and the minority and/or low-income community, as reported by members of that community, particularly youth.
  • The extent to which the ethnic/racial composition of the police force mirrors that of the community as a whole, particularly in neighborhoods with an ethnic or racial character.
  • Equal police presence and enforcement of laws in all neighborhoods.
  • The existence of police/community relations boards or something similar.
  • Number of reports of police brutality, racial/ethnic profiling, or excessive force, and the number of those reports actually investigated.
  • Amount of training police receive in community and human relations, handling domestic disputes, cultural awareness, etc.
  • Amount of training police and other public safety officials receive in preventing terrorism, and in balancing civil liberties and safety.
  • Number of homicides annually in the community.
  • Number of violent crimes (rape, armed robbery, criminal or domestic assault, etc.) annually in the community.
  • Number of homicides and violent crimes in which victims and/or perpetrators are under 18.
  • Number of arrests of youth under 18.
  • Crime rate by neighborhood.

A community with a low crime rate may still have pockets of high crime within it.  When that’s the case, it’s important to analyze the reasons, and to take steps to change the situation.  All citizens deserve to feel safe in their homes and on their streets.

  • The availability to police and firefighters of appropriate tools (firearms, hoses, ladder trucks, etc.) and safety equipment (bulletproof vests, respirators, fireproof clothing).
  • The number of police.

This is a thorny issue politically.  In most communities, police departments feel there are too few police, while many residents may feel there are too many.  Which side of this argument you fall on may depend on your organization or your issue.  If you are concerned with stopping or preventing violence, you may be on the “too few police” side; if your issue is civil liberties or minority rights, you may be on the other.  There’s no easy answer as to what is the “right” level of police staffing.

The environment

The state of both the natural and the “built” (i.e., man-made) environment has a great deal to do with the quality of life in a community.  Open space and wild places provide not only beauty, opportunities for exercise, and an escape from crowds and noise, but also sources of oxygen, fresh water, and wildlife habitat.   Rundown buildings and streets full of trash can have a depressing effect on those who live there, and make life seem bleak and change impossible.  Air, water, and soil pollution can, as we now know all too well, threaten both wildlife and human health.  Thus, environmental indicators may be important to your organization or effort, and are certainly important to assuring the quality of community life.

  • The amount of open space in the community (including public parks, conservation land and other protected areas, wildlife refuges, state forest, farmland, and protected or unprotected wild areas).
  • Threats to open space (negotiations by developers or industry to purchase undeveloped land, pollution, inappropriate use).
  • Amount of protected land in the community.
  • Condition of public parks.
  • Existence of “Friends” of parks or wild areas – groups that are concerned with keeping those areas as they are, and that advocate for and otherwise support their maintenance.
  • The quality and adequacy of drinking water in the community (measurable pollutants, threats to or problems with the water source, size of the water supply and its ability to meet future needs, etc.)
  • Air quality in the community.
  • The number of low-emissions or hybrid vehicles registered in the community and surrounding areas.
  • The number of sites needing clean-up because of former hazardous waste dumping or accidents.
  • Efforts to measure environmental threats to households (toxic soil, radon, lead water pipes, etc.)
  • Efforts by local government to reduce its effect on the environment (e.g., mandated use of low-emissions vehicles on government business, low-emissions or electric vehicles used for public transportation and garbage pickup).
  • Availability and ease of recycling of paper, plastic, hazardous waste, and metal for both households and business/industry.
  • Level of regulation and enforcement of environmental standards for business and industry (number of inspectors and number of inspections they carry out, the nature of penalties for violations – i.e., are they severe enough to keep a factory from polluting? – the strictness of standards).
  • Number of abandoned or neglected buildings (broken windows unfixed or boarded up, paint nearly gone, obvious structural problems).
  • Efforts to preserve and restore historic buildings, monuments, spaces, etc.
  • Local sponsorship of or support for public art (e.g., sculpture in public spaces, murals painted by teenagers in neighborhoods).

 The examples of community-level indicators listed here are really only the tip of the iceberg.  There are literally thousands of possibilities, depending upon your issue and your community.  (More are available in the “Examples” for Section 9 of this chapter, and many more in the Internet resources listed below, and in countless other websites and articles as well.  It’s up to you to be creative in thinking about what kinds of indicators might provide the information you need.

 

To sum up

Community-level indicators – measures that show what the conditions are for the community or a large part of the community, as opposed to for specific individuals – can be useful in evaluation, in assessment, in accountability, and in policy change.  You can find community-level indicators – either gleaned from available information, such as census data, or collected locally by observation and other methods – that will help you understand issues and trends for just about anything that affects the community.  In this section, we have chosen to present a few examples from each of several fields – health, human services and education, community development, public safety, and the environment, and to demonstrate briefly how some of these can be used.

We encourage the reproduction of this material, but ask that you credit the Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/.

 

Resources

Print resources

The Civic Index: Measuring Your Community’s Civic Health, 2nd Edition.  Denver: National Civic league, 1999.

Raphael, Denis, Brenda Steinmetz, and Rebecca Renwick.  How to Carry Out a Quality of Life Project: A Manual.  Toronto: The Community Quality of Life Project, 1998.

Tyler Norris Associates, Redefining Progress, and Sustainable Seattle.  The Community Indicators Handbook.  San Francisco: Redefining Progress, 1997.

Internet resources

http://www.census.gov/

The U.S. Census Bureau.

http://www.communityhlth.org/communityhlth/files/files_resource/CommunityIndicatorsReport_1-05.pdf

“A Community Indicators Report: Selected Stories from the 2004 Community Indicators Conference” of the Association for Community Health Improvement’s Health Research and Educational Trust.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/iacb-dgiac/arad-draa/english/rmdd/wpapers/engsocial2.html

A look at studies on social capital from Health Canada, showing how community-level indicators have been used in various studies to both define and measure the concept.

http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/heart/levelind.htm

New York State Department of Health explanation of community-level indicators.

http://www.urban.org/nnip/concept.html

The International Institute of Sustainable Development’s Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicator Initiatives, a listing of organizations and projects using community-level indicators to work toward sustainable development in a variety of fields (environment, population, economics, etc.) and locations around the globe.

http://keyindicators.org/Research_and_Opinion.html

Links to research and writings on community-level indicators.

http://market1.cob.vt.edu/isqols/kenlandessay.htm

An explanation by Ken Land of the history and possible uses of community-level indicators.

http://www.seattlechildrens.org/dp/level_indicators.htm

Washington State Drowning Prevention Network, Seattle Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.  An example of community-level indicators for a very specific issue.

http://www.urban.org/nnip/

The Urban Institute’s National Neighborhood Indicators Project.  An example of how community-level indicators can be used to drive community change.  See more about the idea at http://www.urban.org/nnip/concept.html.


There are a number of websites listing community-level indicators for various issues, many in specific states, counties, cities, etc.  The following is a sampling:

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/Programt1.asp?bid=1275&i=83

The Aspen Institute.  “Using Community-Level Indicators of Children's Well-Being in Comprehensive Community Initiatives,” by Claudia J. Coulton.  A rather academic paper explaining why the indicators in question were chosen and what kind of light they shed on the subject.

http://www.communityhlth.org/communityhlth/files/files_resource/CommunityIndicatorsReport_1-05.pdf

A Community Indicators Report: Selected Stories from the 2004 Community Indicators Conference.

http://www.adp.cahwnet.gov/risk_indicators.shtml

Community Indicators of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Risk, June 2004, for all counties in California.

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/physical/handbook/appendix5.htm

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control.  A list of emerging community-level indicators for physical activity

http://www.state.hi.us/health/shpda/shxchi.pdf

Hawaii State Health Planning and Development Agency.  The “Tools” section on p.16 contains a list of community-level indicators for various issues.

http://www.cityoftucson.org/lv-toc.html

Livable Tucson, a Tucson, AZ, initiative.  This page is a list of goals, each of which, when clicked on, displays, among other things, a list of key indicators for that goal.

http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/hhsa/documents/2004ReportCardcolorversion.pdf

San Diego (CA) County’s report card on Child and Family Health and Well Being, which includes, starting on p.10, an exhaustive list of community-level indicators and explanations of how they’re used.  Warning: if you have a slow Internet connection, this site takes a long time to download.

http://www.sustainableseattle.org/Programs/Regional%20Indicators

Sustainable Seattle.  An explanation of how Sustainable Seattle, a Seattle, WA, development initiative, chose indicators, and a pdf of the indicators it used.