Socioeconomic Characteristics Worksheet

 

 

In this age of diversity and inclusion and the concern of institutional and implicit racism, please be sensitive, and think /process your acquired data deeply.

Pick a county in a state of your choice (ideally the county you intend to collect primary data from) and collect the demographic, socioeconomic, and quality of life data from PolicyMap for that county. Search for and identify the most impacted (by disaster, over the last ten years) and socio-economically challenged census tract(s) in that county. Compare the census tract data with the overall county and the state data in your report. If you choose wisely, this will serve to define your population demographics for your research proposal.

To provide some context, you should look at Quality of Life data on disasters, education, finance, living situation, family size, etc. In reference to the hazards; the geographical description might be useful for the impact and evacuation concerns (do the people have cars or are they dependent on public transit, for example).
Other characterizations of community asset would represent the content of a medical intelligence report discussed in the Clinical Disaster Medicine course, Public Health capabilities, power, water, sewer, food access, etc.

Ideally, you would write your analysis of the data as a description of the population ready for incorporation into your proposal, and consider how many subjects and of what characteristics would comprise a representative sample of adequate power to permit generalization to the entire county.
Comprehension can be enhanced with effective charts (i.e. graphs, from Excel) to demonstrate proportions of the population with particular characteristics.

For those with difficulty choosing a ripe area, I can recommend Cayuga, Tompkins, Oneida, Oswago, Onondaga counties, in New York; Upson County and Franklin County, Georgia; Greenville or Hampton Counties, South Carolina.