Census breaks down counties' resilience

Jul. 1--The U.S. Census Bureau has developed an experimental tool to identify counties' vulnerabilities and their ability to respond to and bounce back from disaster -- such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bureau's Community Resilience Estimates (CRE) used data from the 2018 American Community Survey, population estimates and the 2018 National Center for Health Statistics National Health Interview Survey to determine how easily counties are likely to recover from the pandemic and to identify populations most as risk of not recovering.

The data indicate rural counties are more likely than urban areas to have a larger high-risk population. According to census.gov, 30% of rural counties' population are considered high-risk, compared to 14% of urban counties' population.

According the U.S. Census Bureau, high-risk people in COVID-19 terms have a minimum of three risk factors, whether health, low income, age, a lack of health insurance, life in a one-person household or another factor. Communities are at a higher risk if 30% or more of their population meet high-risk criteria.

For each county, community resilience estimates were broken down into populations of people with three or more risk factors, one or two risk factors or no risk factors.

In Morgan County, 24% of the population have three or more factors; 47% have one or two risk factors, and 32% have no factors, according to Census Bureau estimates. In west-central Illinois, Scott County has the highest percentage of people with three or more factors at 27%. Macoupin County has the lowest at 21%.

The U.S. Census Bureau believes emergency agencies can use the CRE tool to help in emergency situations and to plan for future health- and weather-related situations.

The bureau also has released several other tools to help monitor the economic and demographic health of states and counties as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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