The CRE estimates community resilience to disasters by using small area estimation (SAE) techniques to combine data from several sources and produce high quality estimates:

• American Community Survey (ACS)
  • Analysis is performed on the individual and household level ACS internal microdata to determine the number of components of social vulnerability (SV).
• Population Estimates Program
  • We utilize age, sex, and race and ethnicity data from the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program.
• Decennial Census
  • We utilize demographic totals from the Decennial Census Redistricting Data (PL 94-171) summary tables and the Demographic Housing Characteristics File (DHC) tables.

The CRE provides estimates of the total number of people living in a community by the number of components of SV. This includes estimates for the following groups.

The number of people with:

• 0 components of SV (Low)
• 1-2 components of SV (Medium)
• 3 or more components of SV (High)

The number of components of SV for an area are determined by examining the following demographic, socioeconomic, and housing characteristics in the ACS microdata. For household-level components, every individual in the household is flagged if the household meets the criteria.

Components of SV:

1. Income-to-Poverty Ratio (IPR) < 130 percent (Household)
2. Single or zero caregiver household - only one or no individuals living in the household who are 18-64 years old (Household)
3. Unit-level crowding with > 0.75 persons per room (Household)
4. Communication Barrier (Household) defined as either:
   1. No one in the household speaks English “very well” or
   2. No one in the household has a high school diploma
5. No one in the household is employed full-time, year-round - excludes households where all individuals are aged 65 years or older (Household)
6. Disability, at least one serious constraint to significant life activity (Individual)
7. No health insurance coverage (Individual)
8. Aged 65 years or older (Individual)
9. No vehicle access (Household)
10. Households without broadband internet access (Household)  

For questions, please contact the CRE Team at sehsd.cre@census.gov