Visualizing socioeconomic disadvantage across US counties
2014-12-17
When we create maps to view the spatial variation of socioeconomic status, we are typically only viewing the variation of one factor at a time (e.g. just income or just unemployment rate). I thought it would be useful to create and visualize a summary score of overall "socioeconomic disadvantage" from many socioeconomic indicators. Using publicly available county-level US Census data from 2005 I created the following map. I conducted a factor analysis to combine the following indicators into one disadvantage measurement:
- Net 5-year population change
- % residents with less than a bachelor's degree
- % households with below $75,000 annual income
- % residents living at or below the poverty line
- Infant deaths per 1,000 live births
- Medicare recipients per 100,000 residents
- % residents that own their dwelling
- Unemployment rate
The three most disadvantaged counties were: The three least disadvantaged counties were: You can find the code here.
© Roni Kobrosly 2022