As we detailed in a previous blog, one of the ways that Data Driven Detroit puts community members in touch with the data that they need is through our free AskD3 service. We receive new inquiries every week, and we’re able to address them by creating useful map products with information that we have access to, providing the data they need directly, or directing them to a source of data that they can easily use to answer their questions. Sometimes, we’re even able to provide the data from our own products.
Since we launched our State of the Detroit Child (SDC) tool, we’ve been able to guide many people to this tool to answer their inquiries related to children and education in Michigan. We’re going to take a look at some of the questions that this tool has been able to answer over the past couple of years.
In March 2019, we received two requests for different demographic data in Detroit neighborhoods. For the first of these requests, we were able to provide a direct link to the SDC data profile for the Corktown Neighborhood in Detroit (Census Tract 5214), which housed demographic data related to general population, youth, income, housing, and more.
The second March 2019 request asked for school attendance data within a 2-3 mile radius of a specific Detroit ZIP code. We were able to provide a link to the SDC tool with a brief explanation for how it works, and how they could navigate to the data that may help them.
In April 2019, a requester contacted AskD3 for some datasets related to lifestyle and healthcare information, including insurance coverage, asthma prevalence, and various environmental factors. We were able to provide a list with a myriad of resources, including a link to the SDC tool, which includes general youth demographic information and health data related to asthma cases, Medicaid coverage, hospitalizations, immunizations, and elevated blood lead levels.
In July 2019, we received multiple requests for demographic information related to children and education in Detroit. The first question asked pertained to data related to starting a nonprofit dedicated to STEM programs for kids in grades K-8, including school attendance and graduation rates. We directed them to some resources for new nonprofits, and to the appropriate data profile on the SDC tool to provide information about enrollment and graduation rates in Detroit.
The second July 2019 request was for locations with the highest concentrations of children aged 3-5 from low income families. We were able to provide links to a data map of poverty status by age and to the specific data profile within the SDC tool that best answered their question.
We also received a couple of requests for SDC-related data in September 2019. The first was for information about Detroit literacy rates and poverty for several neighborhoods. In our response, we were able to direct them to the best resources for each available requested statistic, including the SDC tool, which contains a dataset for third grade English language reading proficiency and some data on income and poverty.
NOTE: If you’re interested in Detroit’s third grade English language reading proficiency, head to the tool here. You could also find income and poverty data here.
Our second September 2019 data request was for data of owner- vs. renter-occupied properties in Detroit. We directed this person to the SDC tool, which includes data on ownership of occupied units. We also provided the requester with instructions for exploring data by geographic profile, and a link to our SDC tutorial.
NOTE: At the time of this request, SDC was our primary tool for easily searching American Community Survey data by geography. We have since published our Housing Information Portal, which is an even richer resource for Detroit property data.
In February 2020, a request came in for an updated number of grandparents raising their grandchildren from the 2010 State of Detroit’s Child report. We were able to provide the updated figure that the requester was looking for, and also direct them to the US Census website—the source of the information they were looking for—and to the SDC tool to find additional information related to children in Michigan.
In March 2020, we received a request for market demographic information for a Detroit neighborhood and Detroit broadly. We were able to respond to this request by providing links to a SDC data profile for the 48207 ZIP code, and a profile for Detroit city, as well as Census Reporter profiles for each geography, to assure the requester had a broad range of demographic data available.