Basic contents and use

This package includes two data files, one for the 2018 (“18”) Opportunity Index (OI) and one for the 2016 (“16”) OI. Both represent opportunity at the level of the Census tract.

The table near the bottom of this page gives basic descriptions of the fields in the OI data files. “Domain scores” are values that are produced from Step 3 found in the methods report for this version of the OI. The domain scores are representative of the degree of opportunity for a tract or zip-code area with respect to the specifically named domain. The “Overall Opportunity Index” value is produced from Steps 4 & 5 of the methods report, and is an overall representation of opportunity for the area.

The domain scores and the overall OI scores are on different scales. The domain scores are means of the standardized individual variables nested within each domain and so tend to have much smaller standard deviations and a mean near zero. The overall OI score contains values between 0 and 100. All variables are directed such that higher values refer to higher levels of opportunity.

Variable names and brief description

Variable Description
tract Census tract identifier
d_crime Domain scores for crime domain
d_educ Domain scores for education domain
d_employ Domain scores for employment domain
d_env Domain scores for environment domain
d_health Domain scores for health domain
d_house Domain scores for housing domain
d_trans Domain scores for transportation domain
oi_## Overall Opportunity Index (year 20##)