The Child Opportunity Index 2.0

• In Event: 3-092 - Novel Approaches for Measuring Neighborhoods and their Influence on Child Outcomes

Integrative Statement

The neighborhoods where children live, learn, and play influence their later life outcomes, including their economic mobility, educational attainment, and health, but researchers are only beginning to understand the multiple pathways through which neighborhoods affect children. In the past, neighborhoods have been characterized primarily by a single characteristic, most commonly poverty level. However, neighborhoods have multiple dimensions (e.g., socioeconomic, educational, environmental) that can influence child development. To address the need for a neighborhood-level metric and data resources that measure the multiple ways through which neighborhoods affect children, diversitydatakids.org and the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State developed the Child Opportunity Index (COI). The COI is the first nationally-comprehensive neighborhood index focused on a broad range of neighborhood factors that affect healthy child development. In addition to its multidimensionality, the COI is unique in its focus on child-relevant conditions and resources, and it includes original indicators that are unavailable elsewhere, such as proximity to quality early childhood education centers.
The COI is a census tract level composite index combining information from 19 indicators covering three domains of opportunity (educational, health and environmental, and socioeconomic). The current COI (COI 1.0) includes data for the 100 largest metro areas, reflecting the time period around 2010, and is standardized to allow comparisons of neighborhoods by opportunity level with other neighborhoods in the same metro area. Currently it does not allow for direct comparisons of neighborhood opportunity between metros.
To be released in 2019, COI 2.0 represents a major update that will allow users to (a) study changes in child opportunity levels at the census tract level between two points in time (approximately 2010 and 2015); (b) compare census tracts within and between metro areas; and (c) provide a single database for researchers including many indicators of neighborhood opportunity that are comparable across time and space.
In our presentation, we will review the motivation and methodology for creating the COI, focusing particularly on issues pertinent to the COI 2.0 update, such as data comparability across time and space and tests of predictive validity. We will illustrate how researchers can explore COI data online, access the source data, and link it to their own datasets. Lastly, we will discuss how a sample of diverse users—including academic researchers and local organizations—have utilized the COI. These use cases will highlight the application of the COI to examine racial/ethnic inequities in access to opportunity, assessing community health needs, and merging the index with individual level data such as health information to explore how neighborhood opportunity affects a variety of child outcomes.

Authors

• Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Brandeis University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Hardy, Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nick Huntington, Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy McArdle, Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clemens Noelke, Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
  Presenting Author