Social Observatories: Envisioning Regional Data

Centers for the 21st Century

Sandra Hofferth

University of Maryland

April 30, 2014

The Challenge to SBE sciences Globalization Social media Declining response rates to surveys Rapid social and environmental changes Rapid shifts in the economy and in social

groups Many current challenges are local

Key SBE Scientific Questions Opportunity and mobility: Place-based studies can help us better

understand important issues such as the local sources of social inequality and disadvantage Place-based local studies can document the organization of

neighborhoods and institutions, distribution and quality of schools, access to medical clinics and facilities, and employment opportunities in the informal sector

Adaptation and Change: Place-based studies are better for examining responses to natural, economic, and social shocks (e.g., hurricane Katrina) – but we need to be in the communities before these events occur

Behavior change: Studies of multiple places can contribute to our knowledge of the context in which micro-level behavior occurs: Could run experiments in different sites to see how the results vary across contexts. This has rarely been done.

Data for People and Places There is increased interest in linking different types of

data, particularly to situate people in place. Many data sets do not provide the option to link with place at a fine (e.g. tract, neighborhood) level.

Included are individual data with great detail or granularity. Other data come from a variety of sources – administrative, local land use, census.

There is a need to collaborate across disciplines. We need tools to design better policy instruments that

address human variability at the local level.

Origins of the Observatory Idea NSF sponsored some 8 workshops with members of the

scientific community from 2005 to present, originally focusing on cyber-infrastructure for the social, behavioral and economic sciences

Recent ones: December 2010, Oct. 2011, Feb 2012, and May 2012

Ten of us submitted a grant proposal to NSF for a Research Coordinating Network, the Social Observatories Coordinating Network (SOCN); we are funded for 3 years to obtain feedback from the scientific communities about this idea and produce a recommendation..

What is an Observatory? Each observatory or regional data center would

be an entity, whether physical or virtual, that is charged with collecting, curating, and disseminating data from people, places, and institutions in the United States.

These centers must provide a basis for inference from what happens in local places to a national context and ensure a robust theoretical foundation for social analysis.

Why the Observatory Approach? Observatories have a long history in the natural and

ecological sciences, and they have served as points around which those communities have come together to strengthen their disciplines

The large national longitudinal surveys can be thought of as a type of observatory, and have provided valuable data that are standardized and consistent but, with some exceptions, they cannot provide a detailed picture of a local area.

AND there are growing problems with their ever rising costs, and with declining response rates across many of the surveys

AND many questions of interest to parts of SBE disciplines are not addressed by these surveys

How will the Observatories be Nationally Representative? To accomplish these objectives, we

propose to embed these regionally-based data centers in a nationally representative population-based sample that would enable the observatory data to be aggregated in such a way as to produce a national picture of the United States on an ongoing basis.

The Basic Problem People are highly concentrated in places Many places have few people Key question: Do you use place or

population as the basis of the design?

Our Proposal: A sample of about 400 census tracts would be selected to

represent the U.S. population while also fully capturing the diversity that characterizes local places.

A unified centralized framework but distributed model Each observatory would be responsible for gathering information

in a preselected set of census tracts The entire set of information gathered by all the observatories

would provide a national sample to address core questions common across the observatories.

In addition, each regional observatory could develop a set of priorities for research that differ from those of other observatories.

What types of data could be collected? Administrative sources (to identify people within tracts):

Voting records, USPS address files Motor vehicle files Reverse phone directories Vital statistics Wage files Credit card data, Medicaid/welfare/food stamps data

Data from sensors – air quality, noise, smartphones, time, exposures, distance Aggregate census data for tracts Survey data, ethnographic data, experiments Social media data (location-specific) Census/ACS for validation

How would the observatory system facilitate access to all its data?

We will examine different models of data sharing and confidentiality - from restricted access (Census RDCs) to remote access and contracts.

We will be holding a workshop to address the issues of confidentiality in data sharing and linking.

Examples of centers and applications

Chicago, Il National Neighborhood Indicators Project Portland, Oregon Household Environmental Impacts and

Exposure

Integrated Database of Child and Family Programs in Illinois

Robert Goerge, Urban Center for Computation and data,

Chapin Hall, University of Chicago

Overall Objective To reduce the burden of multi-problem

families who contribute the most (86%) to cost of social services in the city: Unemployed parents Low socioeconomic status Welfare program participants Single-parent families Mothers who had their first child as an adolescent

Chapin Hall Integrated Data Base1990-present

Schools - PreK, Head Start, Public schools UI wage and benefit records SSA, TANF, SNAP, Child care subsidies Foster care, child maltreatment Medicaid providers, claims, population CPD arrests, juvenile court, incarceration

Method: Improved Targeting Through an extensive mapping process, the

city knows exactly where the bulk of problematic families live.

They are concentrated in a few census tracts in the city

Can focus on those areas for programs.

National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP)

Thomas Kingsley Urban Institute

NNIP

Collaborative effort since 1995

1. Urban Institute & local partners; now 37 cities

2. All partners build and operate neighborhood level information systems; administrative data from multiple sources

Purpose

1. Strengthening neighborhoods

2. Promoting collaboration

3. Improving local decision-making

National Neighborhood Indicators PartnersAtlantaAustinBaltimoreBostonCamdenChattanoogaChicagoClevelandColumbusDallasDenverDes MoinesDetroitGrand RapidsHartfordIndianapolisKansas CityLouisvilleMemphisMiami MilwaukeeMinneapolis-St. PaulNashvilleNew HavenNew OrleansNew York City

OaklandPhiladelphia PittsburghPortlandProvidenceSacramentoSaint LouisSan AntonioSeattleWashington, DC

Neighborhood level – social/economic/physical

EmploymentBirths, deathsCrimesTANF, Food StampsChild careHealthSchools

Property sales & pricesProperty ownershipCode violationsAssessed valuesTax arrearsVacant/abandoned housingCity/CDC plans

Parcel level – physical/economic

23e.g. http://datadrivendetroit.org/projects/cdad/

Coalition for a Livable Future: Greater Portland Pulse Project

Institute of Metropolitan studies University of Portland Meg Merrick, PhD

Background & Objectives

• University-community partnership• Created a relational database infrastructure

housed at Portland state – Regional Equity Atlas– 111 variables and 64 indicators in ‘real time’

• For bi-state regional planning • Interactive web tool and download capacity• Expansion for state-level efforts

https://clfuture.org/equity-atlas

Linking Local Consumption to Global Environmental Impacts

Klaus Hubacek Department of Geography University of Maryland

Objectives

Understanding of what drives peoples’ consumption activities

Estimating household environmental impacts and exposure

Locally and globally

Linking Local Consumption to Global Impacts

What are the Barriers? Differences in data collection from place to

place, state to state Data alignment between projects, linking

database architectures, web services, people

Human capital in government to do this Legal problems in sharing data

“Good luck getting the data sharing agreement through our lawyers….”

Benefits of this Approach But – many of the problems have been

locally worked out. All three examples successfully engaged

their communities and met community needs.

Along with a national coordinating center this model could be a valuable contribution to the national data infrastructure.

What do we gain from this platform?

A national framework for studying local contexts for social dynamics

A national SBE cyberinfrastructure to serve 21st century society

A national framework for interdisciplinary collaboration

Thank you Sandra Hofferth

hofferth@umd.edu

http://socialobservatories.org