How to Perform a Community Advocacy Assessment

Below is a step-by-step example of how to use an ustructured observational tool to perform a community assessment to learn about the advocacy needs of a particular community. This example uses the Child Opportunity Index.

1. The COI is a composite index of children's neighborhood opportunity that contains data for every neighborhood (census tract) in the United States from every year for 2012 through 2021. It is comprised of 44 indicators in three domains (education, health and environment, and social and economic) and 14 subdomains. 

This is a great resource to explore as you gather information about your community.

2. Here is an example map showing census tracks for a specific neighborhood in Columbus Ohio that includes areas surrounding both the hospital and a primary care clinic location.  It demonstrates a visual of the COI for each specific geographic area.  

3. You can further explore the COI in each neighborhood based on race/ethnicity and specific domains such as education or health to look at potential disparities within a specific neighborhood.  

4. The COI also allows you to overlay the historic redlining maps to today’s COI.  This gives you a picture of whether your specific area of focus was affected by this practice.  

What is redlining?  

The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in June 1933 by the US Congress. The purpose was to refinance mortgages in default to prevent foreclosures. In 1935 Federal Home Loan Bank Board asked HOLC to look at 239 cities and create "residential security maps" to indicate the level of security for real-estate investments. On the maps, the newest areas — those considered desirable for lending purposes — were outlined in blue and known as Type A. These were typically affluent suburbs on the outskirts of cities. Type B neighborhoods were considered 'Still Desirable,' whereas older Type C neighborhoods were labeled 'Declining' and outlined in yellow. Type D neighborhoods were outlined in red and were considered the most risky for mortgage support." The outcome of the practice of "redlining" was to deny mortgages and business loans to minorities and lower income borrowers.

Why is this important? 

An understanding of your community’s history with this practice demonstrates the chronic disinvestment and structural racism through which the effects can often be seen today.  A lack of resources, local businesses, parks, grocery stores, etc.. Can be observed when learning about your community and help to identify opportunities for community investment and advocacy.