The Community Vulnerability Index (CVI) is the first public project developed by the non-profit Community Insight and Impact.
CVI was started during the New Lab COVID-19 Data Hack and aims to provide a variety of indices to assess community vulnerability to the impact of COVID-19, including adverse health outcomes, and disparate socioeconomic harms, across the entire US at the county level. We intend this to be usable by a variety of stakeholders: by healthcare systems to identify testing and service deserts and effectively allocate existing resources, by community organizations to find outreach areas and understand needs, and by policymakers to inform funding and decision making.
You can view and interact with our dataset and vulnerability indices on our web app or simple version!
Our dataset contains a range of health care, public health, physical and community infrastructure, socioeconomic, demographic, and COVID-19 specific information at the US county level. We include data from the following open access sources:
- The New York Times COVID-19 Data Repository
- The New York City Health Department COVID-19 Data Repository
- United States Census Bureau County Population by Characteristics: 2010-2019, American Community Survey, and Small Area Health Insurance Estimates
- United States Diabetes Surveillance System (2017)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Interactive Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke and Wonder Multiple Cause of Death database
- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Chronic Respiratory Disease Mortality Rates by County 1980-2014
- County Health Rankings Model Adult smoking
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services COVID-19 Nursing Home Dataset
- United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service
- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings and Roadmaps Program
- Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Open Data
- National Center for Education Statistics Number and percentage of households with computer and internet access, by state: 2015
A full description of the dataset, including definitions for all included variables, can be found in the data dictionary.
We implement a variety of vulnerability scores to help stakeholders assess needs in their area and plan how to best allocate their efforts and resources. The currently available scores are:
- Severe COVID Case Complications
- Risk of Severe Economic Harm
- Need for Mobile Health Resources
We are currently working on developing these scores and they should be available soon:
- Food Access Complications
- Need for Community Connection
- Need for Mental Health Resources
- Risk of Overwhelming Healthcare System
- Lack of Information Access
Full definitions of each of these scores can be found in the scores data dictionary
This is a dedicated open source project and we welcome contributions from the broader data, policy, and scientific community. To get involved in this project, first read through the onboarding doc and reach out to covid.vulnerability@gmail.com. Feel free to also check out the open Issues and make a pull request.
For additional information including our project implementation plan, methodology, and additional reading, check out the documentation folder. If you have additional questions, please reach out to us at covid.vulnerability@gmail.com!
Olga Karabinech |
Cassye Durkee |
Matt Moroney |