What is the prosperity index?

The prosperity index was developed with support from a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) convened by Betty-Ann Bryce, while detailed to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as Special Advisor for Rural Affairs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development agency. TEP members represented a diverse group of stakeholders with a wide range of expertise. The TEP included: Anita Chandra (RAND Corporation), Courtney Cuthbertson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Alison Davis (University of Kentucky), Marjory Givens (Wisconsin Public Health Institute; County Health Rankings), Shannon Monnat (Syracuse University), Robert Pack (East Tennessee State University), Laura Palombi (University of Minnesota), Khary Rigg (University of South Florida), David Terrell (Indiana Communities Institute, Paul State University) Brian Smedley (National Collaborative for Health Equity), and Sarah Willen (University of Connecticut).

The prosperity index provides a single numerical measure designed to reflect the prosperity of a county. For the overall prosperity index score, 1 represents most prosperous counties and 5 represents least prosperous counties. For the component scores, 1 represents lowest risk or highest resilience and a score of 5 represents highest risk or lowest resilience.

The prosperity index is calculated for each county in the United States using standardized values of 16 indicators belonging to one of four component classes associated with prosperity. The four components represented are Economic Risk, Economic Resilience, Social Risk, and Social Resilience. Each of these four components is comprised of four indicators reflecting aspects of that dimension that are aggregated to create the component score.

How should the prosperity index be interpreted?

The economic dimensions, risk and resilience, provide two numerical measures for the degree to which a county is economically vulnerable to, or protected from the effects of public health and well-being challenges and crises. The economic risk experienced by a county is qualified or mitigated by its level of economic resilience, the strength of its protective factors.

Similarly, social risk and social resilience both have a role in determining the vulnerability of a county. Taking both economic factors and societal factors into consideration gives the most complete picture of the county and can help users refine focus for initiatives that seek to improve quality of life by reducing risk and increasing resilience.

The index may provide benefit to public health officials in counties where a certain level of vulnerability may exist even though a crisis has not yet been experienced. Proactive exploration of the index and digging deeper into the factors that it highlights will allow end users to reduce the likelihood or severity of these crises.

What are the indicators?

Indicators were selected based on several criteria, including the ability to influence the indicator at the local level, the availability of county-level data that is consistently reported and publically available, and data that could be considered indicators of community-level prosperity. Indicators that were suggested but ultimately not included in the prosperity index due to data limitations or challenges are: access to transportation, income inequality, and access to early childhood education.

How is the prosperity index calculated?

The prosperity index is calculated for each county in the United States using standardized values of 16 indicators belonging to one of four component classes associated with prosperity. The four components represented are Economic Risk, Economic Resilience, Social Risk, and Social Resilience. Each of these 4 components is comprised of 4 subcomponents reflecting aspects of that dimension that are aggregated to create the component score.

Each indicator, also known as a subcomponent, was scaled to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. This is referred to as the standardized subcomponent value. Then a clustering algorithm grouped all of the counties into 5 homogenous groups according to the standardized values thus providing a score (1 through 5) for each county for each subcomponent.

At the component level, the 4 subcomponent standardized values within the component are summed to create a component value. The counties are then clustered according to the component value to create the component scores 1 through 5.

Finally the component values are summed for each county to create the prosperity value. The counties are then grouped into 5 classes with 1 representing the most prosperous and 5 representing the least prosperous. This 1-to-5 score is the final prosperity index score.