Comment On Possible Changes to ACS

Opportunity to Comment: Proposed American Community Survey 2013 Content Changes and Internet Response

OECD World Forum

4th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge, and Policies: Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies

October 16-19, 2012, New Delhi, India

The Forum website will be established shortly. In the meantime, more details can be found here or email newdelhi2012@oecd.org.

New CIC Board of Directors

Congratulations to the new CIC Board of Directors!

As part of the Annual Meeting on December 15, 2011, CIC held its first online election of board members and officers. The results of the election are:

Re-elected to new three year terms:

• J. Joseph Baldwin, Sr. Researcher/Planner, Health and Human Services Coordinating Council for Pinellas County, St. Petersburg, FL
• Jose de Jesus Garcia Vega, Prof. of Economics and Director of the Center of Well-Being Studies, Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico
• Adam Luecking, CEO, Results Leadership Group LLC, Bethesda, MD
• Kathy Pettit, Sr. Research Associate, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center and Co-Director, NNIP, The Urban Institute, Washington, DC

Newly elected to three year terms:

• Rita Conrad, Greater Portland Pulse Project Manager, Portland, OR
• Florence Kabwasa-Green, Management Analyst, County of Monterey, and Research Associate Consultant, The Urban Insitute, Washington, DC
• Sara Lyons, Program Director, Vital Signs project, Community Foundations of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
• Chantal Stevens, Performance Management Analyst, King County Auditor's Office, Seattle, WA
• Ben Warner, Executive Director, Jacksonville Community Council, Inc, Jacksonville, FL
• Lyle Wray, Executive Director, Capitol Region Council of Governments, Hartford, CT

Elected as Officers:

• President: Adam Luecking , CEO, Results Leadership Group LLC, Bethesda, MD
• Immediate Past President: Charlotte Kahn, Director, Boston Indicators Project, The Boston Foundation, Boston, MA
• Vice President:  Kathy Pettit, Sr. Research Associate, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center and Co-Director, NNIP, The Urban Institute, Washington, DC
• Vice President:  J. Joseph Baldwin, Sr. Researcher/Planner, Health and Human Services Coordinating Council for Pinellas County, St. Petersburg, FL
• Treasurer: Karen Hruby, Executive Director, Truckee Meadows Tomorrow, Reno, NV
• Secretary: Michele Collins, Consultant, New Orleans, LA

View contact information and bios of the new board on the Board of Directors page.

CIC Continues its FREE CI-PM Webinar Series

CIC is proud to announce the continuation of it's FREE CI-PM Webinar Series, restarting December 1st. Find out more information and register at our Events Page.

New NNIP Website Launched

The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is proud to announce the launch of our new web site!

Visit www.neighborhoodindicators.org today to …

•  

  Learn about ways our 35 local partners have used neighborhood data to tackle particularcommunity issues, such as foreclosures, absenteeism, or food access.

  Discover the lessons from our cross-site projects over the years, including school readiness.

  Explore examples of our partners using national sources of neighborhood level datasuch as the Local Employment Dynamics data or the American Community Survey.

  Watch videos of our last two partners’ meetingswhere we share ideas and lessons from across all of our sites.

  Understand the NNIP model and the process for becoming a partner.

  Find out about the organizations who are members of NNIP, including the types of organizations and how they are supported.

  Check out job openings at partner organizations and related upcoming events.

Todd Park's Health Initiative Overview

As part of the US Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Health 2.0 Developer Challenge, Todd Park (HHS's Chief Technology Officer) recently gave a presentation on their Health Initiative. Video of this presentation, along with other information on the Challenge, can be found here.

CIC Launches 2011-2012 Webinar Series

Announcing: CIC 2011-2012 Webinar Series: Indicators in Depth, FREE for CIC Members. Join Sara Lyons, Program Director for Vital Signs Canada on October 27 and November 8 in a two part program to learn about this exciting 30 community initiative!  More information here

2012 Mission-Driven Management Summit

Registration for the 2012 Mission-Driven Management Summit is open. Find out more information on our Events Page.

Results Based Accountability Fall Road Show

See our events page for more information.

New Data on Residential Segregation

New data on residential segregation of the total population and of children in metropolitan areas is now available through diversitydata.org.  Users can compare segregation along several dimensions over the 2000 to 2010 time period.  In addition to the  most commonly used "dissimilarity index" which compares the evenness with which whites and minorities are located across a metro area, users can also explore the extent to which racial or ethnic groups are isolated in neighborhoods with very high percentages of their own group and the extent to which whites and minorities are exposed to each other in neighborhoods. Measures of centralization, spatial proximity, and concentration are also available.

New Partnership for Detroit Sustainability Indicators Project

A recent partnership between Data Driven Detroit and the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan will help fund and implement the Detroit Sustainability Indicators Project; a series of seven social, environmental and economic based research projects. Visit the Data Driven Detroit website for more information.

OECD Unveils an Interactive "Your Better Life Index"

Last week, the OECD "unveiled a new, interactive index that will let people measure and compare their lives in a way that goes beyond traditional GDP numbers. Called Your Better Life Index (watch video), the tool is part of a larger OECD Better Life Initiative that aims to measure well-being and progress. The index allows citizens to compare lives across 34 countries, based on 11 dimensions -- housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety, work-life balance -- giving their own weight to each of the dimensions." Find more information here.

OECD Releases Society at a Glance 2011

OECD (Oranisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has recently released, "Society at a Glance 2011," it's biennial overview of social indicators. This sixth edition contains updated and new indicators, and a new chapter on unpaid work. Find our more and purchase here.

Washington Post Article on Budget Threat to "Open Government"

If you haven't yet, please read Ed O'Keefe's April 17th article, "Budget Cuts Could Close the Door on Obama’s ‘Open Government’ Goal" published here on The Washington Post's website. The piece alarming points out the threat that the recent budget cuts have to Obama's "Open Government" goals, particularly the data collection projects: Data.gov, IT Dashboard, and USASpending.gov.

CDC Releases 'Health United States, 2010'

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has released it's annual report on trends in health statistics within the United States. This years report features 148 trend tables and 41 charts. It contains a new introductory section called "In Brief," that highlights in detail several pertinent indicators. It contains dozens of section on selected topics, and its yearly special feature focuses on "Death and Dying." You can read the report in full here.

NCES Releases Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2010

The National Center for Education Statistics has released a new report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2010. Focusing on students, teachers, and principals, the report presents data on crimes occurring in, and to and from, school. The full text of the document can be viewed here.

From the NCES, "The Indicators of School Crime and Safety provides the most current detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools and school environments and responses to violence and crime at school. It also presents data on crime away from school to place school crime in the context of crime in the larger society. The report covers topics such as victimization, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school."

CDC Publishes 120 Updated Data Trends

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recently updated 120 Trend Tables in its report, Health, United States, 2009. The list of the updated Trend Tables can be found here. A description of the report, as well as a link to the document, can be found here.

Best Papers from the 2009 CIC Conference

A selection of six of the best papers and presentations from the 2009 CIC Conference have now undergone peer review and been published in a special issue of Applied Research in Quality of Life journal. The special issue was edited by Meg Holden and Rhonda Phillips. The papers include the conference keynote lecture from Dr. Stephen Bezruchka of the University of Washington School of Health, entitled "What indicators should be presented to Americans so we don't die so young?" Other papers cover inspiring and insightful developments in indicators work with a focus on community and sustainable development, mental health, youth development, and corporate social responsibility. Their communities of focus span from east to west coast of the United States as well as points in Europe.

New Orleans Community Indicator Index

Be sure to check out the recently released New Orleans Index at Five, a project co-created by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. The index provides a comprehensive examination of 20 key indicators to the region, and also contains seven essays on pertinent community issues as seen through the lens of the data. You can watch a podcast interview with the Brookings Institution's Amy Liu here. In it, she uses data gathered from the Index to share progressive developments that have been occuring in the metropolitan region, while also discussing the remaining challenges that still need to be surmounted.

Worst case Needs report from AHS

From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.org>

The 2007 Worst Case Needs report, based largely on the American Housing Survey, has been released and is available for download from HUD USER, at

http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/affhsg/wc_HsgNeeds07.html

2010 KIDS COUNT Data Book Now Available

Community Indicators Consortium is pleased to join the Annie E. Casey Foundation as a 2010 KIDS COUNT Data Book Outreach Partner. The annual Data Book is a comprehensive resource on the status of U.S. children, featuring state-specific data on ten key indicators of child well-being. Please visit the online Data Center, to download the report and create maps, graphs, and charts at the national, state, and local level.

Oxford and UNDP launch a better way to measure poverty

London, 14 July 2010: The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new poverty measure that gives a "multidimensional" picture of people living in poverty which its creators say could help target development resources more effectively.

The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by OPHI with UNDP support, and will be featured in the forthcoming 20^th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The MPI supplants the Human Poverty Index, which had been included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1997.

The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report will be published in late October, but research findings from the Multidimensional Poverty Index were made available today at a policy forum in London and on-line on the websites of OPHI (www.ophi.org.uk).

Report Reveals National Indicators of the Well-Being of Children

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics has released "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2010." This report continues a series of annual reports to the nation on the well-being of children in the United States. The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences, in cooperation with 21 other federal agencies, contributes indicators to the report and supports its production.

According to the report's section on education, eighth graders' average mathematics scale scores increased between 2007 and 2009, as did eighth graders' average reading scale scores. Not all the report's findings were positive, however; the proportion of youth aged 16-19 who were neither enrolled in school nor working increased from 8 percent to 9 percent between 2008 and 2009.

The 2010 Childstats website includes 68 tables and 59 figures that describe the population of children and depict their well-being in the areas of family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.

You can view, download, and print the report at http://childstats.gov/

Dr. Alex Michalos Appointed

Brandon University is proud to announce that Dr.Alex Michalos has been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada.

He received the honour for his contributions to the social sciences, notably in research that has helped to measure the quality-of-life in Canada and abroad.

"This is a delightful surprise. I wish my parents had lived to see it," says Michalos. "I moved to Canada from the States on July 1, 1966. Became a Canadian citizen in 1973 and 44 year later to the day, obtained this wonderful recognition. Some good luck, eh?"

He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Brandon University. He is also the Director of Research for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and Emeritus Professor in Political Science at his former institution, the University of Northern British Columbia.

Michalos has published 24 books, over 100 refereed articles, and founded or co-founded seven scholarly journals. Among the seven, he is Editor in Chief for the Journal of Business Ethics, the most frequently cited journal in the world devoted to business ethics, and Social Indicators Research, the first scholarly journal devoted to quality of life research.

He is married to Dr. Deborah Poff, President and Vice-Chancellor of Brandon University.

For more information, please contact:
Brant Batters
Communications Officer
Brandon University
(204) 727-9762

communications@brandonu.ca

Foreclosure-Response.org Data and Forum Updates

Foreclosure-Response.org, an online portal for data and information on foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization brought to you by the Center for Housing Policy, LISC, and the Urban Institute, has released updated data, new online mapping tools, and more resources to help communities address foreclosures and stabilize neighborhoods.
Updates include:
New Data: LISC Foreclosure Needs Scores are now available for March 2010 -- These data allow users to see which ZIP codes within each state have high foreclosure needs.
New Maps for All Data: The site now includes three mapping tools, developed in partnership with PolicyMap, to allow users to map the LISC Scores, HMDA High-Cost Purchase Loan data, and HMDA Market Conditions data.
The HousingPolicy.org Forum's Foreclosure Prevention and Neighborhood Stabilization groups also hosts numerous new discussions including questions about insuring vacant properties, competitive grants for neighborhoods.

CommunityMatters10 Registration Opens

Registration for the Community Matters '10  conference in Denver, Oct 5-8, 2010 has opened. Sponsored by the Orton Family Foundation, the conference is a unique four-day innovation-action experience that brings together a coalition of leaders, thinkers and doers committed to building strong, vibrant communities from the ground up. The conference agenda includes novel tools and solutions, instructive discussion and hands-on experiences for citizens and community builders. Frances Moore Lappé, the author of Diet for a Small Planet, is a featured speaker and will offer a rousing call for democracy, collaboration, and grassroots action.

New Census tutorial on employment data

OnTheMap is a Census Bureau interactive mapping tool that that allows users to visualize and download small-area employment (Local Employment Dynamics -LED) data.

In 24 minutes, this tutorial demonstrates how to do basic analyses using  OnTheMap with seven years of employment and segmented age, earnings and industry data for local and regional areas in 47 states.

OnTheMap allows users to define custom areas for detailed analyses; illustrate flows of workers across state borders; produce and export reports and maps; view time-series animation over the seven available years of data; and perform Area Profile and Shed Analyses for work and home areas in both local and regional geographies.

Trends in Metro America

NYT article: Beyond GDP

In “The Rise and Fall of the G.D.P.”, Jon Gerner of the New York Times describes the growing movement to expand how we measure progress as a society beyond the traditional indicator of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).   It features Chris Hoenig from State of the USA, a nonprofit organization developing a website to provide a single place to track progress across a range of national concerns.

Launch of National Data Catalog

Sunlight Labs recently launched their National Data Catalog, an open platform for government data sets and APIs. It makes it easy to find datasets by and about government, across all levels (federal, state, and local) and across all branches (executive, legislative, and judicial). The data here is imported from multiple sources and curated by Sunlight Labs staff. They aggregate sources from: data.gov, data.dc.gov, utah.gov, datasf.org, and the Sunlight Foundation and its partners.  The hope is to expand its reach as the federal government moves forward on its open data agenda and more local and state governments embrace the open data movement.

CIC launches new web site

Community Indicators Consortium's Board of Directors is delighted to announce the launch of our new web site. 

While this was a collaborative effort, the website reflects the wise leadership, commitment, and technical skills of CIC Board Member Joe Baldwin, Chair of the Technology and Website Committee. For many months, Joe shepherded the process of rethinking and redesigning the site in order to provide CIC members with new ways to network and learn from one other. Thank you, Joe!

We are also in the process of launching an exciting new searchable on-line database of community indicator projects.

Now it's your turn.  Please help us to keep CIC's new website fresh by:

1. Sending us your news about reports, research, events or other items of interest to community indicator practitioners so that we can add it to the web site.
2. Filling out our on-line survey with up-to-date information about your indicators project in order to create a comprehensive listing of projects around the world (see below for information about CIC's on-line searchable database of indicator projects).
3. Participating in and contributing to learning and networking activities, such as webinars and the CIC conference (planned for March 2011 in partnership with the Public Performance Measurements & Reporting Network; stay tuned!).
4. And, most importantly, joining CIC or renewing your membership if it's time. (For information about our Members' Only website features and details about how to get involved in CIC activities, please read the message from the Co-Chairs of the Membership, Outreach and Marketing Committee).  

Thank you for your work to advance the art and science of using indicators to improve our communities and our world, and thank you for being a member and supporter of CIC.

With all best wishes,

Charlotte Kahn
President, CIC Board of Directors
Director, Boston Indicators Project

Call for Real Stories

We are pleased to announce the 2010 call for Real Stories about communities integrating community indicators and performance measures to enhance the use of data by citizens and public officials for better decision-making to improve overall community decisions. We are in the process of selecting the ten best. The authors will be awarded with $2,000 each when their stories are published. This is part of the ongoing project that CIC is coordinating under a two-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The purpose of the grant is to promote, advocate for, and develop a community of practice for integrating community indicators and government performance measures, and for engaging citizens and other key community stakeholders in the process. This expands upon the previous work that identified the benefits and barriers to integrating indicators and performance measures. To learn more CIC’s efforts to promote the integration of community indicators and performance measures follow the CI-PM Integration link.

Urban Institute releases MetroTrends

MetroTrends, from the Urban Institute, contains the latest information on social and economic trends in urban America and get seasoned perspectives on what they mean for workers, families, businesses, and neighborhoods. The website includes up-to-date indicators from seven national data sources on conditions and trends in the nation's metropolitan regions and expert commentary on interlocking trends in:

• employment growth
• mortgage lending and house prices
• earnings and material hardship
• immigration and diversity and
• the well-being of children

in the top 100 metropolitan areas nationwide. MetroTrends is intended to fuel evidence-based debate about the nationwide impacts of:

• recession and recovery
• critical differences among metropolitan regions
• persistent or emerging disparities among population groups

As economic stresses renew public interest in government policy, MetroTrends is a resource for citizens and policymakers who need timely, reliable information to make sensible decisions, administer programs effectively, vote, and help their own communities go forward. learn more

Canadian Water Indicators Report

Currently in Canada, no central location or repository exists for fresh water-related indicators and their associated data. Little attention has been given to characterizing and analyzing the types of environmental indicators currently available in the water sector. A recently released report,  Dunn, Gemma and Karen Bakker (2009). Canadian Approaches to Assessing Water Security: An inventory of indicators. Vancouver BC: UBC Program on Water Governance, fills this gap. The report reviews and evaluates existing fresh water-related indicators in Canada and analyzes the capacity of these indicators to aid decision-making. The report includes an inventory of 365 Canadian fresh water-related indicators, the first of its kind.  The inventory is analyzed and the key gaps and overlaps are highlighted. In addition, we explore the impact of jurisdictional fragmentation in federal and provincial/territorial government on the uptake of indicators. Focusing at the federal and provincial/territorial levels, we identify key drivers and trends in indicator development and identify major obstacles in Canada’s capacity to assess water security. We present recommendations designed to increase the effectiveness of water security assessments in Canada. This policy report, the first in a series, documents and assesses the strength of the indicators currently used in Canada to measure and assess water security, with a focus on both federal and provincial levels. For further information, please contact: Gemma Dunn.

CIC 2009 Conference

CIC's 2009 Conference, held Oct 1-2, 2009 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue Washingon was attended by over 175 people and featured more than 75 presentations and workshops on how community inicators are being used to create positve change in communities. Read more.

Boston Indicators Project

"Boston Indicators" have released their 5th biennial report: "A Great Reckoning: Healing a Growing Divide", which shows that even in the successful knowledge economy, income inequality has widened. The entire report can be found here.

JCCI's 5th Annual Race Relations Progress Report

The "Jacksonville Community Council Inc" has released its fifth annual race relations progress report. The report easures progress toward eliminating disparities in Education, Employment and Income, Neighborhoods and Housing, Health, Justice, and Politics and Civic Engagement, and can be read in its entirety here.

Results of CIC Elections

CIC welcomes Jeri Asher, Ted Greenwood and Meg Holden to its Board of Directors.