Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

From ZCTAs to Census Tracts: Reconstructing the Social Capital Atlas for Small Area-Level Research

Authors: David Zhu; Joseph Friedman;

From ZCTAs to Census Tracts: Reconstructing the Social Capital Atlas for Small Area-Level Research

Abstract

The Social Capital Atlas (Atlas) is a novel index from Chetty and colleagues that allows for the scientific study of social capital—a key driver of social inequalities that has nevertheless been understudied for its connection to social and health outcomes. The Atlas was defined at the ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level, a granular geospatial category derived from postal codes. However, ZCTAs have known limitations, and far fewer social, economic, and health indicators of interest are available at the ZCTA level compared to the census tract level. We therefore reconstruct the Atlas at the census tract level to provide a novel dataset that can be used to advance the scientific study of social capital. To accomplish this, we used block-level population weights to approximate tract-level estimates of economic connectedness (EC), support ratio (SR), and volunteering rate (VR), and then assessed their distributions and associations with upward mobility. Reconstructed distributions were highly similar to the original analysis, albeit with slightly lower means. EC remained strongly associated with upward mobility at both the ZCTA and census tract levels, including after adjustment for socioeconomic covariates. SR and VR showed weaker and less consistent associations. In sum, we present a reconstructed tract-level alternative to the public-use ZCTA-level Atlas that may be useful for public health, sociological, and policy research. However, these measures should be interpreted as geographic approximations rather than direct tract-level social network estimates.

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!