Neighborhood Deprivation Index for year 2015, using the 2010 census geographic boundaries

The NDI provides a measure of neighborhood deprivation at the census tract level, with higher values corresponding to more severe deprivation. Each state's values are analyzed independently. The NDI empirically summarizes eight census variables representing five domains: income/poverty, education, employment, housing, and occupation. The eight census variables include the percent of: (1) males in management and professional occupations; (2) crowded housing; (3) households in poverty; (4) female-headed households with dependents; (5) households on public assistance; (6) households with earnings less than $30,000 per year; (7) individuals with less than a high school education; and (8) individuals that are unemployed. The NDI is calculated using a principal components analysis (Messer et al. 2006), such that the NDI values produced depend on the study area that is used in the NDI calculation. Specifically, the NDI value calculated for a given census tract will differ if the NDI was calculated using, for example, all tracts in the county vs. all tracts in the state vs. all tracts in the United States. Prior to selecting, calculating, or using the NDI, it is critically important to define the study area and analytical goals so that the most appropriate study domain is used for the NDI calculation.