ABOUT
This tool uses data from the five-year (2018–22) American Community Survey to assess demographic and spatial disparities in your data. Once you upload data, the tool compares the distribution of the uploaded data with the distribution of baseline variables from the ACS.
For the map, we construct geographic disparity scores by taking the difference between the percentage of the data and the percentage of the selected baseline population that falls into each state (national-level tool), county (state-level tool), or tract (county- and city-level tool).
For the demographic disparity chart, we first estimate the demographic groups your data depicts by taking a weighted average of the demographics across all the tracts your data come from. We compare that average with the overall demographics of the selected baseline population and report the difference as the demographic disparity score. See our documentation for more details.
We use the ACS formulas to calculate 95 percent confidence intervals for both the geographic and the demographic disparity scores. If the interval contains zero, we mark that disparity as not statistically significant. For more information about the specific methodology and variables used and how they vary by geography, please see the documentation.
For the demographic disparity chart, we use “Latinx” to refer to people of Latino or Hispanic origin as asked by the census. We recognize that this gender-neutral term may not be the preferred identifier for many, but we use it to remain inclusive of gender nonconforming and nonbinary people. The regions users may select on the chart correspond to US census regions.
For the national-level tool, we use “national” to refer to the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. We realize this excludes US territories from analysis and hope to include them in future iterations of this tool.
For more information about our sample datasets, see our entry in Urban Institute’s Data Catalog.
To learn more about the public Application Programming Interface (API) for the tool, see our API Documentation.
For help using this tool, contact [email protected].
Errata: We corrected this tool on March 19, 2024, to address an error in the American Community Survey (ACS) variable codes used to pull race and ethnicity data. This error was introduced on March 6 when we updated the tool to use the 2018–22 five-year ACS data. As a result, between March 6 and March 19 the race and ethnicity group results in the demographic disparity score chart for the total population baseline were incorrect.
Project credits
This feature was originally funded in collaboration with the
Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the tool’s expansion from city-level analysis to national-, state-, and county-level analysis. The
Salesforce Foundation funded the development of the public application programming interface and the updated documentation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available
here. Read our terms of service
here.
This data tool is a product of Urban Institute’s Racial Equity Analytics Lab.
Research
Ajjit Narayanan,
Alena Stern,
Gabe Morrison,
Sonia Torres Rodríguez,
Graham MacDonald, and
Amy Rogin
Design
Allison Feldman
Development
Ajjit Narayanan, Ben Chartoff,
Alena Stern,
Gabe Morrison, Dave D’Orio,
Jean Clayton Seraphin,
Silke Taylor, and
Erika Tyagi
Editing
Fiona Blackshaw, Devlan O’Connor, and
Alex Dallman
Writing
Serena Lei