Roni Kobrosly Ph.D.'s Website

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:

1) McDowell County, West Virginia 2) Owsley County, Kentucky 3) Buffalo County, South Dakota

The three least disadvantaged counties were:

1) Douglas County, Colorado 2) Fairfax County, Virginia 3) Loudoun County, Virigina

You can find the code here.