Abstract

Sonoma County Communities: Cumulative Risk and Educational Outcomes
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: George Malachowski, Oscar Chavez

In, 2011, the County of Sonoma Humans Services Departmentas partnered with Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County's for their startegic planning process to help use data to inform decision making. As a result of this partnership, research was conducted to test two hypotheses:
1. Sonoma County Communities differ in demographics, risk factors, and school age educational outcomes.
2. Cumulative risk is related to worse educational outcomes among Sonoma County communities.
ArcGIS tools, such as geocoding and hot spot analysis, were used with local, state, and federal data to test these hypotheses and helped lead to several conclusions that informed Community Action Partnerships strategic decisions.
Two examples were geographically focusing services and identifying which risk factors to prioritze.