Racial Diversity (Theil Index)
This indicator measures the spatial distribution or evenness of population demographic groups in neighborhoods throughout the county. This indicator is presented as an index with values ranging between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating higher levels of segregation between neighborhoods.
Source
Source Description
The Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems is a non-profit research organization that integrates the social, physical, and biological sciences to better understand human, natural resource, and environmental issues and problems. Based at the University of Missouri, CARES utitlizes the latest technologies in geographic information systems, satellite imagery, environmental modeling, and the internet to compile, analyze and distribute information about our world.
Methodology
This layer displays information about racial segregation using the Theil Index (H). This index measures the “eveness” of all races across a total area (in this case, counties) based on the racial composition of the population at sub-areas (in this case, census blocks). Specifically, for any given total area, the index measures the average difference between each sub-areas’s racial distribution (entropy), and the racial distribution (entropy) of the county as a whole. H values range from 0 to 1. Areas with higher values of H (approaching 1) have less uniform ethnic distributions; areas with lower values of H (approaching 0) have more uniform ethnic distributions.
The Theil Index was calculated using population data and geographic units from the 2010 Decennial Census. The population groups used in the measurement are: Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black, Non-Hispanic Asian, Non-Hispanic American Indian / Alaska Native, Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino.
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