See what Kentucky Youth Advocates Research Director, Amy Swann has to say about the 2020 Census
Kentucky Youth Advocates Research Director, Amy Swann on how the Census impacts our kids at school, how the Census can impact kids’ health, how you can be sure you’re speaking to a legitimate Census Bureau employee, and more. For more information on 2020 Census jobs, click here. Learn how you can spread the word here. […] Read More »
See what Metro United Way Director of Engagement, Mandy Simpson has to say about the 2020 Census
Metro United Way Director of Engagement Mandy Simpson discusses groups that are typically undercounted in the Census, how the Census impacts international communities, why it’s easier than ever to complete the Census, and more. For more information on 2020 Census jobs, click here. Learn how you can spread the word here. To view important dates […] Read More »
See what Kentucky State Representative, Attica Scott has to say about the 2020 Census
State Representative of Kentucky House District 41, Rep. Attica Scott discusses the importance of the 2020 Census, how it determines redistricting and representation, why you shouldn’t be concerned with completing the survey, and more. For more information on 2020 Census jobs, click here. Learn how you can spread the word here. To view important dates […] Read More »
Quality of Life in Louisville for People with Chronic Illnesses
Improving the quality of life for people with chronic illnesses improves the community. Louisville ranks 6th out of its peer cities for the number of adults without a primary care provider, with 265,000 residents lacking this important healthcare service.On this metric, Louisville ranks among the middle tier of its peers according to a natural breaks […] Read More »
Food Insecurity: A Compassion and Economic Concern
By: Krista Drescher-Burke, Data and Research Officer, Greater Louisville Project According to the USDA[1] very low food security means “that, at times during the year, the food intake of household members is reduced and their normal eating patterns are disrupted because the household lacks money and other resources for food.” Food insecure households are characterized […] Read More »
GLP Community Health Survey
The Greater Louisville Project (GLP) is working on the development of a community-wide mapping of Louisville’s health landscape on factors aligned with Jefferson County’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings. We are calling on the community to take the survey and help distribute it to others—email lists or list servs, website links, newsletters, Facebook page, […] Read More »
Culture of Health
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the leading health philanthropic organization in the nation, endorses a culture of health. Earlier this summer, two representatives from the GLP attended the Aspen Ideas Festival Spotlight: Health, hosted by RWJF. At the opening of the festival, we heard Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the President of RWJF, explain that “Building […] Read More »
Predicament of Poverty: 26% of Louisville’s kids are poor
Results of the recently released KIDS COUNT report show that Kentucky children are disproportionately living in poverty. For a family of four to be considered impoverished, total yearly household income is $23,850 or less. Nationally, about 23% of kids live below the poverty line, but in Kentucky about 27% do, up from 22% in 2005. […] Read More »
Health Matters!
Americans spend more on health care than any other industrialized nation, yet our health outcomes are considerably lower. We are simply not getting our money’s worth when it comes to health care spending. Experts have long known that these high costs are due to a number of factors, including the costs associated with preventable diseases […] Read More »
Guest Blog: Regan Hunt, Kentucky Voices for Health – Health Coverage for better Health Outcomes
The Louisville community has over 100,000 uninsured residents. Kentucky Voices for Health is spearheading a statewide project called Get Covered Kentucky. Get Covered Kentucky works in communities to educate people on how and where they can enroll in health coverage. One of the biggest efforts to improve health in our community is going on right now—open enrollment […] Read More »
Natural Breaks Algorithm
For each indicator, Greater Louisville Project assigns cities into one of three groups (high-performing, middle-of-the-pack, and low-performing) based on how they compare to other cities. The assignment is based on how cities naturally cluster on that indicator. Sometimes, the differences between cities are very small, and the difference between a city ranked 5th and 6th could simply be a matter of the sampling error that arises from using survey data. Thus, rather than always make a division that declares the top 5 to be the top tier, we use a natural breaks algorithm to look for a cluster of cities that is outperforming the rest, a cluster that is about average, and a cluster that is lagging. This clustering gives us a better indication of where Louisville is thriving and where Louisville has room to learn from cities that are doing better.
Z-Scores
Z-scores (or standardization) is a way to combine data with different units of measurement into a single index. The z-score is a measure of how far away a city (or census tract, etc.) is from the average city. In order to be comparable across different units of measurement, the z-score is the distance from the mean measured in standard deviations (e.g. if Louisville has a z-score of 1 it means Louisville is 1 standard deviation above the mean of its peer cities).
Data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's County Health Rankings use z-scores and all z-scores are relative to the mean of Louisville's peer cities. (On the County Health Rankings site z-scores are relative to all the counties in each state - thus z-scores reported by GLP will be different, because we are using a different reference group). The Greater Louisville Project also uses z-scores in our multidimensional poverty index, which compares each census tract to the mean of all census tracts in Louisville.