Washtenaw County Opportunity Index improvements make it easier to track areas of inequity

Washtenaw County recently announced a major improvement to its Opportunity Index, a publicly available interactive geographic information system (GIS) map designed to help residents, local governments, businesses, and nonprofits track the county’s areas of economic inequity and connect those in need to help. 

The county regularly updates the Opportunity Index in partnership with Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, a university-wide initiative that partners with community groups and policymakers to find new ways to prevent and alleviate poverty through action-based research. One simple improvement is that the index has been moved from an obscure website to the county Office of Community and Economic Development’s (OCED) own site. 

The improved Opportunity Index utilizes a system called Tableau. OCED Director Toni Kayumi says the previous system was useful, but frequently intimidatingly complicated to use. The new system makes it easier to sift through the index’s data in five key categories: health, job access, education and training, economic well-being, and community engagement. Each category includes sub-categories like life expectancy, high school dropout rates, and homeownership rates.

“We realized that Tableau is a lot more intuitive. But we went one step beyond using the basic template with customized features, like adding distributions so people can see where things fell relative on each measure,” says Amanda C. Nothaft, director of data and analysis at Poverty Solutions. “Prior to creating the index and updating the data, we talked to users to figure out where people were struggling, and a lot of it was ‘how do I see each layer?’ So, by making a very simple … drop-down menu to access each layer, we’re able to make it more intuitive.”

Kayumi says the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners spent $142,054 on the Opportunity Index improvements. 

“Now that it is more user-friendly, I think it is more accessible for anyone who lives in Washtenaw County … who is curious about the economic well-being, job access, community engagement, or health of certain communities [to] use this and find that information,” she says. She adds that residents can use the tool to “talk about the disparities … with facts and figures backing you up … to petition for better resources to come to your community.”