Tracking and Reporting Community Conditions

Community Indicators Handbook. 155 pp., 1997.

Redefining Progress, Tyler Norris Associates, Sustainable Seattle. Introduces community indicators and community indicator reports and a 10-step process for creating an indicator report. Includes guidelines on indicator selection, acquiring data, and report design. Appendices contain a glossary, the Community Indicators Network directory, a list of data sources on the internet, and sample indicators.

Community-Level Indicators for Understanding Health and Human Services Issues. A Compendium of Selected Indicators, Systems and Resource Organizations. 2000. Deborah Gibbs, Rsearch Triangle, and Brett Brown, Child Trends.

A great resource for people in local, state and federal government agencies, private sector organizations and others who are interested in learning more about the growing use of community-level social indicators. Designed as a user-friendly tool that showcases an interesting and diverse selection of indicator systems and resource organizations. Is intended to facilitate information sharing among those who are doing local indicator work and provide background information for those who are new to this rapidly evolving area of interest.

Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicators

Provides an overview of initiatives on sustainable development indicators being carried out at the international, national and provincial/territorial/state levels.

Finding the Data: A Start-Up List of Outcome Measures with Annotations. 1995. Center for the Study of Social Policy, Washington, DC.

Assists communities that are trying to measure and improve outcomes for families and children. Outcome measures are provided for several areas including child poverty, brithweight, child abuse and neglect, and substance abuse. Information is provided on defining outcomes, finding the data to measure outcomes, and analyzing the data to assess local performance.

Healthy Cities.

World Health Organization (WHO) Center for Urban Health. Reports on the two completed phases of the Healthy Cities initiative and describes the third phase. Contains an extensive library of downloadable Healthy Cities manuals, reports and other material. Maintains an internet directory of Healthy Cities web pages.

Healthy Communities USA.

Contains the Healthy Communities Agenda and a searchable database of community building resources and tools. Includes an online directory of Healthy Communities initiatives by state and region, though this information does not yet appear to be complete.

Healthy People 2010 Toolkit: Appendix A.: Resources.

A compilation of resources related to health care planning and management. The following resoruces related to outcome assessment and measurement are of particular interest: "Assessment and Health Informtion," "Planning and Community Partnerships," "The Community Toolbox," "Health Care Forum Outcomes Toolkit," and "Resources on Obtaining Baseline Resources, Setting Targets, and Measuring Progress."

Indicators of Child and Family Well-Being: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. A Presentation to the National Institutes of Health. 16 pp., 1999. Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research.

Explains why indicators of child well-being are needed and describes the history of development of child well-being indicators, the criteria for defining indicators of child well-being, and the needs and next steps in establishing child well-being indicators.

Indicators of Children's Well-Being: From Construct to Application. The Third National Level Meeting of the Planning Phase. 1997. Child Trends, Washington, DC. On the web site, click on Indicators and Statistical Profiles to order the publication.

This report summarizes a meeting (on April 28, 1997) on the development of indicators of children's well-being at the state level. This meeting was the third in a series of national-level meetings of the planning phase of the Project on State-Level Child Outcomes.

Indicators of Sustainability. 1999.

Hart Environmental Data. Includes a searchable online database of indicators of sustainability, overviews of the concept of sustainability and criteria for selecting indicators, and a fairly extensive resource list.

KIDS Count International Data Sheet. 1990. Kids Count, Publication Reference Bureau, and Child Trends. The above data sheet can be viewed and downloaded with Acrobat Reader.

Wallchart that was prepared to measure the progress made on a variety of goals for children's health and well-being set at the 1990 World Summit on Children.

Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2010. Final Report. 80 pp., 1999. Carole A. Chrvala and Roger J. Bulger. Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.

Describes a small set of leading health indicators established by the Healthy People 2010, an initiative that defines opportunities at the national, state, local, and community levels to remediate the most significant and tractable issues affecting the health of US people.

Lessons Learned from the History of Social Indicators. 36 pp., 1998.

Redefining Progress. Briefly reviews the history of indicators and presents lessons for contemporary indicator projects. Thoughtful, practical guidance on how to use indicators appropriately and move from simply tracking indicators to taking action and achieving outcomes.

Quality of Life Index for the Grand Traverse Region. 1998. Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation and Northwestern Michigan College.

A community-based effort which attempts to identify, measure and annually report on ten different areas that affect the quality of life of everyone in the Grand Traverse region. This third year of the Index contains comparisons from 1996 to 1998, allowing to make comparisons to see if indicators are improving or declining.

Redefining Progress.

Includes a searchable online database of more than 150 community indicator projects, with a separate listing of indicator projects on the web. Home of RP-CINet, an email discussion list on indicator projects. CINet archives can also be searched from the site. Summarizes the "Genuine Progress Indicator" and the "Satisfaction Barometer."

Social Indicators Site.

Canadian Council on Social Development. Seeks to serve as a central repository for social indicator information on the internet. Includes the Social Indicators Repository, a collection of links to social indicator reports and texts, and the Social Indicators Launchpad, an extensive list of links (not annotated) to primarily Canadian and American social indicators sites on the web.

The Center for Schools and Communities. Community Outcome Areas and Community Outcome Indicators.

Provides an illustrative list of specific program outcome goals under each of the broad program outcome areas established by the Center for Schools and Communities. Each of these outcome goals is related to improvements in outcomes of people served by the Center's programs.

The Good Community Indicators Project. 1999. Center for Social Research, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Southwest Missouri State University.

A list of ten characteristics that describe a "good community" in Springfield/Green County, Missouri. Using various methods, a committee gathered input from the entire community to develop the list.

Welfare Information Network Resources for Welfare Decisions: Indicators of Child Well-Being

A compilation of resources on indicators of child well-being and related reports developed by the federal government, in partnership with foundations and nonprofit communities.

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