All chapters

What the deprivation index measuresWeighing the ingredientsPublished

The Area Deprivation Index orders 75,717 census tracts almost in reverse order of median home value, with a rank correlation of −0.988, and the home value term alone accounts for 74.3% of the variance of the score its formula produces.

Neighborhoodsadiacssviusaleepopportunity-atlas

What a county average leaves outTwo zoomsPublished

A county's percentile on a deprivation index follows the average of its tracts' percentiles, with a correlation of 0.96, yet 32.7% of residents live in a tract more than 25 percentile points from their county's percentile.

Neighborhoodsadiacsusaleepopportunity-atlas

Birthweight and preterm birthThe starting linePublished

Low birthweight was 7.4% of births in the least deprived tenth of counties and 9.7% in the most deprived, for births in 2018 to 2024 in counties of 100,000 or more residents.

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Infant mortalityThe first yearPublished

Infant mortality in 2018 to 2022 ran from 3.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to 8.7 in Mississippi.

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Smoking in pregnancyBefore the first breathPublished

In large counties with a usable count, the share of births to mothers who reported smoking fell from 5.4% in 2018 to 1.9% in 2024 and stayed higher where county income was lower.

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Where births are fallingThe vanishing cradlePublished

Births in the counties that CDC WONDER identifies fell 4.6% from 2018 to 2024, by 5.6% in the least deprived quartile of counties and 7.3% in the most deprived.

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Test scores, class and raceThe classroom staircasePublished

Average achievement in third through eighth grade, 2009 to 2019, differs by 2.54 grade levels between the 5th and 95th percentile of counties and rises with county income in 45 of 45 states.

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Gender gaps in reading and mathTwo gaps, one districtPublished

Girls outscored boys in reading in 99.9% of school districts over 2009 to 2019, and the math gap, boys minus girls, rose from −0.20 grade levels in the lowest-income tenth of districts to +0.08 in the highest.

Institutionssedaacs

School discipline and incarcerationThe crossroadsPublished

Out-of-school suspensions in the 2020 to 2021 school year ran from 3.1 per thousand students in the least deprived tenth of school districts to 23.6 in the most deprived.

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College access, price and earningsThe toll boothPublished

A decade after entry, the median former student who received federal aid earned $28,330 at the median for-profit college and $42,014 at the median public college, for students who entered in 2009 to 2011.

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Teen birthsA generation backPublished

The Opportunity Atlas predicts a teen birth for 38.5% of women born in 1978 to 1983 to parents at the 25th income percentile and raised in tracts now in the most deprived tenth, against 12.9% in the least deprived.

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Race, income and mobilityTwo ladders, one streetPublished

White children from low-income families born in 1978 to 1983 reached a higher adult income rank than Black children raised in the same tract in 92.5% of the 30,997 tracts where both are estimated.

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Mental distress in young adultsThe young and the anxiousPublished

Frequent mental distress among adults 18 to 24 rose from 12.3% in 2014 to 25.3% in 2022 and was 21.8% in 2024, in a survey that draws new adults each year.

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Work, wages and access to jobsJobs here, workers therePublished

In 2019, in the fifth of counties with the fewest local jobs per job held by residents, 45.4% of residents' jobs were in the top earnings band, against 39.5% of the jobs located in those counties.

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Home value, income and redliningThe deed and the ledgerPublished

Across census tracts, each counted once, life expectancy at birth for deaths in 2010 to 2015 is 2.2 years higher for each doubling of the median home value for 2019 to 2023.

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Mortgage denialsThe application and the answerPublished

Lenders denied 13.8% of the home-purchase applications they decided in 2024 in the most deprived tenth of census tracts and 7.8% in the least deprived tenth.

Neighborhoodshmdaholcadipublished-estimates

Renting, affordability and evictionThe first of the monthPublished

45.6% of renter households with a computed burden spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2018 to 2022, against 20.8% of owner households, a gap detectable only among low-income households.

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Air pollutionThe air you're assignedPublished

The national traffic-pollution percentile of census tracts, modeled for 2020, has a correlation of −0.41 with the Area Deprivation Index across tracts but +0.19 within counties.

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Civic life, loneliness and partnershipAlone togetherPublished

Voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election was 72.1% of adult citizens in the least deprived tenth of counties and 56.4% in the most deprived, and census self-response was 21.0 points lower across the same tenths.

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Life evaluation and daily feelingsThe ladder and the dayPublished

Gallup respondents in the most deprived tenth of counties rate their lives 0.24 ladder points lower than those in the least deprived tenth, a gap near zero or below at the same household income, characteristics and county rent.

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Well-being across the life spanTwo clocks of a lifePublished

In Gallup interviews from 2009 to 2017, life evaluation averaged 6.84 at ages 45 to 54 and 7.38 at ages 75 to 94, and the lowest point of the unadjusted profile by year of age falls at age 54.

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Health behaviors and the supply of careThe body keeps the addressPublished

In the most deprived tenth of census tracts, the modeled 2022 share of adults with a past-year dental visit was 24.4 points below the least deprived tenth, and the routine-checkup share 3.6 points above.

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Health behaviors, person by personThe rich person's vicePublished

Among adults, the share who binged on alcohol in the past month was 13.3% in the lowest of five household income bands and 20.4% in the highest, while smoking, obesity and physical inactivity were each less common in the highest band.

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Multiple chronic conditionsWhere illness keeps companyPublished

Weighted by adults, census tracts in the most deprived tenth were high on 5.7 of nine modeled chronic-condition prevalences on average in 2022, against 0.5 in the least deprived tenth, a count for tracts and not people.

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Disability, retirement and MedicareThe twilightPublished

In CDC PLACES model estimates from 2022 survey responses, the share of adults with any disability was 23.3% in the least deprived tenth of census tracts and 42.9% in the most deprived.

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Gun homicide and the causes of early deathThe sliverPublished

Outside New York City, the tract clusters with the highest firearm homicide rates hold 50% of the deaths that CDC's rates imply for 2022 to 2024 and 9.5% of residents.

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Overdose, alcohol and suicideTwo despairsPublished

Across counties with a stable modeled rate for suicide, overdose and homicide in 2019 to 2023, suicide death rates are only weakly related to overdose and homicide rates (population-weighted correlations of +0.13 and −0.02).

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Mortality trends, 2018 to 2024Last callPublished

In CDC WONDER, the national overdose death rate peaked in 2022 at 50.5% above its 2019 level and was 8.5% above it in 2024.

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Place and the length of a lifeTwo addressesPublished

Life expectancy at birth was 82.3 years in the least deprived tenth of census tracts and 74.0 years in the most deprived, for deaths recorded in 2010 to 2015.

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Violence and the life-expectancy gapThe lost yearsPublished

A rough accounting that assumes 41.5 years of life lost per homicide attributes 4.8% of the gap of 8.3 years in life expectancy between the most and the least deprived tenths of tracts to homicide.

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How far one ranking goesOne ranking, many outcomesDraft

Of 30 outcome gradients drawn from 18 chapters, 17 are steadily worse toward the more deprived end of the ranking each chapter uses, 5 are better there, and 2 show no detectable difference between the least and the most deprived places.

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Eight types of neighborhoodThe eight AmericasPublished

Mean life expectancy for deaths in 2010 to 2015 runs from 74.7 to 82.1 years across eight overlapping types of census tract, built by k-means from 81,343 tracts on 7 measures of income, poverty, education, family structure, tenure, age and density, with no outcome among them.

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Places that beat the modelCodaPublished

Five census measures from 2019 to 2023 account for 44.0% of the variation in tract upward mobility for children born in 1978 to 1983, and counties below that prediction cluster in the South.

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What moving can changeOffers, moves and policiesDraft

Randomized offers of housing vouchers, studies of children whose families moved at different ages, and a trial of help with the housing search find changes for particular families under particular conditions, from 15% to 53% of families moving to high-mobility areas in one trial, and none of them measures what the gradients in this book would become if places changed.

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Gradients, slopes and varianceThe factory floorPublished

For deaths in 2010 to 2015, tract life expectancy is 1.12 years lower per ten-point step of the ADI within counties, and lower in more deprived tracts in all 267 metros.

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Families of placesSorting instead of rankingPublished

Among 4 families of census tracts sorted on deprivation measures alone, life expectancy for deaths in 2010 to 2015 runs from 74.7 years in the high-poverty family to 81.7 years in the high-income family.

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Suppressed counties in death dataThe counties that don't countPublished

CDC WONDER withheld the death count in 47.1% to 57.9% of county-years for overdose, alcohol-induced deaths and suicide from 2018 to 2023, and the counties it published in every year are selected on their death rates.

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