This section is based on an article in the Work Group Evaluation Handbook: Evaluating and Supporting Community Initiatives for Health and Development by Stephen B. Fawcett, Adrienne Paine-Andrews, Vincent T. Francisco, Jerry Schultz, Kimber P. Richter, R.K. Lewis, E.L. Williams, K.J. Harris, Jannette Berkley, Jacqueline L. Fisher, and Christine M. Lopez of the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
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What are community-level indicators?
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Why should you use community-level indicators?
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When should you examine community-level indicators?
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How do you select and use community-level indicators?
What are community-level indicators?
Community-level indicators are measures that help describe conditions, experiences, or outcomes across a defined community. Examples include rates of preventable injuries, access to affordable housing, or the percentage of residents reporting a particular health behavior. While activity records, surveys, goal attainment reports, and interviews help explain an initiative's work, community-level indicators show broader patterns that the initiative hopes to influence. Changes in these indicators do not, by themselves, establish that the initiative caused those changes.
Start with measures that are relevant to community priorities and supported by appropriate evidence and data sources. For an initiative addressing alcohol-related harms, one possible indicator is the rate of emergency medical transports recorded as alcohol-related. Interpreting that measure requires knowing how cases are identified and whether reporting practices, service availability, or the population have changed. No single indicator provides a complete picture, so select a manageable set of measures that reflects your goals.
Why should you use community-level indicators?
Community-level indicators connect your initiative's activities with the broader conditions it seeks to improve. They can help identify priorities, track trends, and assess whether progress is reaching different parts of the community. Used alongside other evaluation information, they support more informed decisions about where to focus your work.
Community-level indicators help track progress toward community outcomes.
Indicators provide a consistent way to examine whether conditions are moving toward agreed goals. Examples might include rates of traffic injuries or hospital admissions for violence-related injuries. Choose measures that closely match the outcome you want to understand: nighttime crashes, for example, should not automatically be treated as alcohol-related crashes. Track measures over time, document their limitations, and consider whether changes in service access, reporting, or population size could affect the results.
Community-level indicators help assess whether the initiative's strategies align with observed changes.
If your action plan includes several strategies, indicators can show whether the outcomes those strategies aim to influence are changing. However, a community-wide trend usually cannot tell you which specific activity produced a change. Combine indicators with implementation records, participant experiences, and an appropriate evaluation design to investigate the initiative's contribution and other possible explanations.
Community-level indicators can bring attention to continuing needs.
Findings that show persistent or worsening conditions can support public discussion about unmet needs and barriers to progress. For example, an unchanged traffic injury rate may prompt your group to examine which roads or populations face the greatest risks and whether current strategies reach them. Before drawing conclusions, consider the time needed for change, the reliability of the data, and other influences. Use the findings to inform action without overstating what they demonstrate.
Community-level indicators can support continued investment.
Favorable trends can help communicate progress toward shared goals and support discussions about sustaining or expanding useful work. Explain what changed, who experienced the change, and what evidence connects the initiative to it. Acknowledge contributions from community members, partner organizations, and other efforts. Report mixed findings and remaining needs as openly as improvements so that requests for support rest on a credible account of progress.
When should you examine community-level indicators?
Select indicators during planning, before activities begin whenever possible. Review existing historical data to understand baseline conditions and trends. This helps your group set realistic objectives, identify gaps in available information, and decide when changes might reasonably become visible.
Continue reviewing indicators at intervals that match the availability of data and the decisions you need to make. Some sources are updated frequently, while others are released annually or less often. Community outcomes may take longer to change than participation or service delivery measures. Use those earlier measures to guide implementation while continuing to track longer-term outcomes.
Review the indicators at major milestones and after the project ends when follow-up is feasible and useful. A new survey is not always necessary; existing administrative records or population surveys may provide suitable information. Allow enough time for expected outcomes to emerge, and document any changes in measurement that could affect comparisons.
How do you select and use community-level indicators?
There are five main steps to selecting and using community-level indicators.
Select indicators that are relevant, credible, feasible to obtain, and responsive to meaningful change
Work with staff, community members, and people with relevant data expertise to decide what progress should look like and how to measure it. For each indicator, define the population, geographic area, time period, data source, and calculation. Consider whether the measure captures the intended outcome, whether it can detect meaningful change, and whether it can reveal differences within the community. Balance the usefulness of the information with the cost and effort of obtaining it.
Suppose your initiative aims to reduce cannabis use among high school students. A relevant indicator might be the percentage of students reporting cannabis use during the past 30 days in a survey designed to represent local high school students. Arrest counts would not be a direct measure of cannabis use: they also reflect enforcement practices, legal definitions, and reporting. Choose the measure that best answers your question, and recognize that a school-based survey may not describe young people who are not enrolled or are absent when it is administered.
Contact relevant agencies and organizations to locate data
Identify local, regional, state, tribal, or national organizations that collect relevant information. Depending on your objectives, sources might include health departments, school districts, transportation agencies, housing organizations, hospitals, or community research partnerships. Ask about the population covered, collection methods, release schedule, missing information, and any restrictions on use. Data available for a county or state may not accurately describe a particular neighborhood.
For the cannabis use example, contact the school district or health department to ask whether comparable local student survey estimates are available for several years. Confirm that the questions, grade levels, sampling methods, and geographic coverage are sufficiently consistent for comparison. Ask whether estimates use survey weights and whether measures of uncertainty are available. If suitable local data do not exist, document that gap rather than presenting state or national findings as local results.
Compile, summarize, and graph the data
Organize the information in a report with clearly labeled graphs, charts, or tables. Record the source and definition of each measure, including any changes across reporting periods. Distinguish counts from percentages and rates: a larger number of events may reflect population growth rather than a higher likelihood of an event. Where appropriate, report both the number of events and a rate using the relevant population. Explain uncertainty and avoid displaying small groups in ways that could identify individuals.
For the student survey example, graph the percentage reporting cannabis use during the past 30 days for each available survey year. Include observations from before the initiative began when possible, and mark when major strategies were introduced. Keep the population and measure consistent, and show uncertainty where available. A change after implementation is worth investigating, but timing alone does not establish cause and effect. Comparison data and information about other community changes can help you interpret the pattern.
Share findings with community members, organizational leaders, governing boards, and funders
Present findings in accessible language and formats that meet your audiences' needs. Explain what the indicators show, what they do not show, and how they relate to community priorities. Share progress, continuing challenges, and differences across groups when the data support those comparisons and privacy can be protected. Invite community members to help interpret the results, and avoid descriptions that blame or stigmatize the people represented in the data.
Use the findings to inform public priorities and improve the initiative
Review the findings alongside information about implementation, community experiences, and available resources. Identify what the results suggest about continuing needs and possible improvements. Agree on specific next steps, assign responsibility, and decide when to review progress. Indicators are most useful when they inform decisions rather than serving only as figures in a report.
If reported cannabis use among high school students remains unchanged, examine whether your strategies reached the intended students, whether enough time has passed, and whether the estimate is precise enough to detect a meaningful change. Discuss the findings with young people, schools, health professionals, and community partners. Their perspectives can help identify barriers, strengthen relevant supports, and determine whether the initiative should adjust its approach. Do not interpret arrest patterns or survey results alone as evidence of substance use disorders.
Interpret both favorable and unfavorable trends in context. Improvement may signal a need to sustain effective supports rather than immediately shift resources elsewhere. Unchanged or worsening indicators may reflect implementation problems, broader conditions, measurement changes, or an approach that needs revision. They warrant investigation rather than an automatic conclusion of failure. Use the full body of evidence to decide whether to maintain, adapt, expand, or discontinue particular strategies.
Using indicators for continued learning
Community-level indicators help your group understand broader conditions and track progress toward shared goals. Their value depends on selecting meaningful measures, interpreting them carefully, and acting on what you learn. Combined with other evaluation methods and community perspectives, they can support useful feedback and ongoing improvements in your initiative's work.