2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

284 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
cogent analysis of several analytic challenges and some of the cutting
edge methods that are being developed to address them.
Background and Framework
How does research design and analysis fit into the community indicators
and community change agenda? Although much has been accomplished
on the ground with sets of indicators displayed in maps and graphs,
deeper and more complex analysis is required to inform policy and to
add to the knowledge base about community development and change.
In particular, more sophisticated analysis tools are needed to assess the
quality of neighborhood measures, uncover relationships among indicators,
describe places along multiple dimensions, and discover patterns of
change across time and space. Moreover, efforts to estimate the effects
of neighborhoods on residents or to evaluate the impact of community
change initiatives pose challenges of causal attribution that need
to be addressed by careful research design and analysis. In addition, the
plethora of geospatial data and growing demand for information on the
dynamics of neighborhood change require greater attention to the precision
of community measurement and spatial processes than may have
previously been assumed.
There is no one discipline or source to turn to for research design and
analysis methods that are potentially useful for community indicators. In
fact, the individuals contributing to this methodology are investigating a
wide variety of topics and come from many backgrounds, including economics,
sociology, epidemiology, geography, public policy, urban affairs,
community psychology, social work, and others. Their studies have in
common the use of data collected on small areas such as neighborhoods
and rigorous attempts to manipulate the data in ways that address important
questions about community context and change. Although not solely
directed at the analysis of community indicators, there are elements of
their techniques that can be used and applied.
Before we describe selected methodological advances, it is necessary
to acknowledge that the choice of analytic tools and approaches must be
guided by the purpose and focus of the neighborhood indicators study
or project. The particular methodological difficulties that face data analysts
are driven, in part, by the research questions they are asking and
the phenomena they are studying. Below we offer two dimensions along