Well-Being Assessment of Communities in the Klamath Region

Results and Discussion

Variation in Socioeconomic Status and Community Capacity by Subregion

Socioeconomic conditions and community capacity vary considerably among the six social assessment regions. A summary of the subregional averages of capacity scores, socioeconomic scores, and individual socioeconomic scale components is presented in Table 5. The averages presented in the table for each subregion treat each aggregation with equal weight, regardless of population size. An alternative approach would be to calculate average subregional scores from aggregation scores weighted by population. In this approach, however, the few extraordinarily large urban aggregations in most of the subregions would overwhelm the summary scores. Moreover, due to the close relationship between aggregation population size and capacity, population-weighted average capacity scores are as much as one and a half points higher than unweighted averages. Therefore, population-weighted subregional averages were avoided in order to retain the emphasis on community level aggregations.

As indicated in Table 5, the average community capacity scores of aggregations vary by less than half a point by subregion; from medium capacity to between medium and medium low capacity. There is greater subregional variation in average socioeconomic status scores. The aggregations of the Northern Sacramento Valley subregion have the highest average socioeconomic status score, over one point higher than the lowest average score in the Trinity subregion. Although the Trinity subregion has the lowest average socioeconomic score on the seven-point scale, the North Coast subregion has a lower average on the continuos socioeconomic scale, since the former value is an average of integers. This does not imply that the entire population of the Northern Sacramento Valley subregion has a higher socioeconomic status than the population of the Trinity subregion; only that average status scores of 15 aggregations in the Northern Sacramento Valley are higher than those of the 10 aggregations in Trinity.

Averages of the components of the socioeconomic scale show a great deal of variation between subregions. As shown in Table 5, the average standardized scores for tenure, poverty intensity, poverty, education, employment, and families with children receiving public assistance indicate the average number of deviations from the mean for each measure. The average tenure score of 0.54 for the Northern Sacramento Valley is more than a full standard deviation over the average of minus 0.64 for the North Coast subregion, indicating a much higher average rate of home ownership in the aggregations of the Northern Sacramento Valley subregion. Likewise, with average poverty and poverty intensity scores of 0.42 and 0.46, respectively, the Trinity aggregations have, on average, much higher rates of poverty and poverty intensity than the Northern Sacramento Valley, with respective scores of minus 0.38 and minus 0.48. Average educational attainment scale scores are over a full standard deviation higher in the North Coast (0.42) than in the Modoc Plateau subregion (minus 0.56). On average, aggregations in the Rogue subregion have the lowest rate of children in households receiving public assistance income, as indicated by the standardized score of minus 0.39. Likewise, with a value of 0.35, the aggregations of the North Coast have the highest average rate of children in households receiving public assistance income.

TABLE 5: Regional averages of socioeconomic and capacity scores and socioeconomic components

¹ Scale components (tenure, poverty intensity, poverty, education, employment, and families with children receiving public assistance) are expressed as average standardized scores equal to the average number of deviations from the mean.
² Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990a.
³ Average of five-point community capacity scale (1=lowest; 5=highest) determined by experts in local workshops (averages are from integer values chosen at the aggregation level).
⁴ Average of seven-point socioeconomic scale (1=lowest; 7=highest), (from integer values developed from continuous socioeconomic scale at the aggregation level).
⁵ Average of continuous socioeconomic scale developed from 1990 census data, normalized to a base of 100.
⁶ Average of standardized tenure score: higher values indicate higher levels of home ownership.
⁷ Average of standardized poverty intensity score: higher values indicate greater intensity of poverty among residents with incomes below poverty level.
⁸ Average of standardized poverty score: higher numbers indicate a higher percentage of the population with incomes below the poverty level.
⁹ Average of standardized education score: higher values indicate higher overall levels of education.
¹⁰ Average of standardized employment score: higher values indicate higher levels of employment in the civilian labor force.
¹¹ Average of standardized score for children in households receiving public assistance income: higher values indicate higher percentages of children in households receiving public assistance income.

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