Arizona Social Vulnerability Index

We hope the information you find on this page will help advance the health of your community. As you explore the storymap, you will find the Arizona Social Vulnerability (AZSVI) data in an interactive format, stories about the strength of Arizona communities, and a link to download the data for your own use. Use the tabs at the top of this page to jump to each section.

With this information, public health, healthcare, social services, behavioral health, emergency response sectors, and nonprofit-sectors, as well as the Arizona public can make data-driven decisions about how to address health disparities in their community. We hope you’ll reach out to us at  healthequity@azdhs.gov  with any feedback or questions you have - we would love to hear how you’re putting this tool to use in your work.

There are many factors that create barriers to health, such as not having access to the internet for information, not having a vehicle, or living far away from doctors' offices and grocery stores. By mapping these barriers, we can inform programs and outreach in ways that strategically support communities and equitably address health disparities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry (ATDSR) developed a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to bring together and analyze many different factors that can affect the health of people and their communities in order to better estimate places in greatest need during an emergency. This was done with a national-level analysis and does not account for the impact of Arizona-specific conditions on a community’s vulnerability such as extreme heat.

The Arizona Social Vulnerability Index (AZSVI) incorporates an additional theme into the index, with factors that were determined by the community to be specific to the experience of Arizona residents and are not already in the national SVI. These include rent burden, food insecurity, population density, air quality, tree cover, heat vulnerability, water costs, and internet access.

Detailed information about the CDC SVI can be found at  https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/svi/ .

The following are just a few ways that the AZSVI can be used to address health disparities:

• Identify where to target resources when resources are limited.
• Estimate how many emergency personnel and services are needed to assist people.
• A grant proposal reference to address a need in your community.

The AZSVI is a product of the Arizona Health Improvement Plan (AZHIP) Data Advisory Committee (DAC), created in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU), Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) GIS, and the ADHS Office of Health Equity. Funding for this project was provided through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Disparities Grant OT21 2103. The DAC is a group of over 50 organizations who bring community insight to the table and advise ADHS on how to implement data projects with an equity lens. Over the course of several months, the DAC discussed and distributed feedback surveys to community partners to identify a list of Arizona-specific factors to include in the AZSVI. Partners at ASU then considered multiple datasets and found reliable statewide measures that could represent those factors in the index.

Internally at ADHS and within the DAC, there were ongoing and robust conversations about the deficit-based nature of the national SVI, and specifically, the use of the word “vulnerability”. There is broad recognition among the DAC and at ADHS that communities who face health challenges have assets and existing capacity to address these challenges. Additionally, by using the word “vulnerable” and by framing communities through deficits, we run the risk of further stigmatizing and “blaming” communities for the unlevel playing field they already must navigate to meet basic needs.

Nonetheless, we also recognize and agree with the Office of Minority Health when they say that, “systemic socioeconomic inequities like poverty, poor housing conditions, and lack of access to quality health care lead to worse health outcomes among racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States.”

We feel that identifying local communities that have been chronically under-resourced and the prevalence of social determinants of health that create the highest risk for disproportionate impact are critical for informing and ensuring equitable resource allocation and response in public health efforts. Given this, we decided to add onto the CDC’s SVI rather than create a completely new index. This was also impacted by funding and staff capacity which created limitations in our ability to incorporate asset-based data in the Arizona theme.

We encourage you to use the layers of data in the  Interactive Dashboard  to view local resources such as food banks and libraries, and to read the descriptions of data limitations throughout this storymap.

We were grateful for the opportunity to interview 11 partners and members from communities that may be underrepresented in the data. They shared stories of their community’s unique experiences and strengths to help this data tool present a more holistic picture of health in Arizona. Go to  Community Stories  to read their stories, or view a Spanish version.

Funding for this project was awarded through the CDC’s Health Disparities Grant OT21 2103. A detailed description of the methods of analysis for the AZSVI can be found in the About the Data section of this storymap.

1) This index does not replace the important work of working with the community to understand their real needs

We recommend using this index as a planning tool to start discussion and focus attention. This is just one of many tools and is not predictive of present-day conditions. Depending on the situation, other data may be more pertinent and should be considered as well. Local information should be considered if it is available and will likely give a more accurate picture of community level factors.

2) Living in an area that has a high vulnerability score doesn’t make someone inherently vulnerable

Social determinants of health are nonmedical factors that impact health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, play, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems that shape the conditions of daily life. These forces and systems include things like economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, climate change, and political systems.

These factors make it harder for some communities or some geographic areas to access what they need to be healthy and result in health disparities. On the other side of the coin of vulnerability is community assets and strength. What this index does not show is the ways in which communities create solutions and come together to address their health needs despite these barriers. When viewing the data, keep in mind that people living in areas ranked as most vulnerable may have strengths such as social connectedness or indigenous technologies.

3) Data limitations exist especially in rural and Tribal communities

Members of Tribal Nations in Arizona are underrepresented in some of the data sources used for this statewide tool - some tracts are not included in the map at all due to missing data or very high margins of error. The analysis also does not take into account cultural factors or resiliency factors such as social cohesion. Thus, it may overestimate vulnerability and lead readers who do not have an understanding of local or Tribal contexts to make false conclusions. The timeliness of the data is also a limitation, as some data lags behind present-day by years. These limitations in the data exist for all communities across the state, but are greater in rural census tracts and in those on Tribal lands.

We ask that you not use this data to represent a trend in a Tribal community unless you are partnering with the Tribe in your efforts to fully understand the issues.

This map shows the overall AZSVI score for each Arizona census tract.

This is the first of several maps which displays each level of the AZSVI data. Custom views with layers are available in the Interactive Dashboard.

To explore the data, click on a census tract.

The first four Themes are the same as the CDC SVI. The fifth Theme is the addition, which makes this index specific to Arizona.

There are 16 factors across the first four themes. The data comes from the Census American Community Survey (ACS), 2018-2022 5-Year Estimates.

The Arizona Theme has 9 factors. The estimates come from multiple data sources, some which are from the Census, and some that were identified by the ASU team to be the best statewide available data to measure that factor. Learn more about the data sources and analysis methods in the section titled "About the Data".

These stories are from interviews with individuals from various communities across Arizona. Community members share about challenges they have encountered in accessing the resources they need for a healthy life while highlighting their remarkable strength, innovation, and cooperation to address their health challenges head-on.

Disclaimer: Some interviewees wished to remain anonymous, and some wished to use their name. All markers on the interactive map display are only a general representation of the place the person referenced in their interview and does not reveal their home or work address.

Click  here  for Spanish translation of stories.

Data Documentation

•  AZSVI Quick Legend 
•  AZSVI Technical Data Dictionary 
•  AZSVI Technical Data Documentation 
  • Provided by the analysis team at Arizona State University, this document describes AZSVI analysis methods and data limitations.

Data Download Download the AZSVI data in part or in full on the  ADHS Open GIS Data Portal .

Update Frequency This project was completed through one-time funding and we are unsure of our capacity for regular updates. The CDC typically updates their SVI every two years and it was most recently updated in October, 2024. When the CDC releases the next update, ADHS will assess our capability to update this AZSVI.

Presentations and Publications If you use the AZSVI in a publication, please let us know by emailing  healthequity@azdhs.gov . 

Presentations and publications about the AZSVI will be listed here as they become available and as our team becomes aware of them.

Acknowledgements We are incredibly grateful to all of the partners on the Arizona Health Improvement Plan (AZHIP) Data Advisory Committee who have provided feedback and guidance on this project over the past two years, the data analysis team at Arizona State University and University of Arizona, the 11 community members who shared their personal stories, and the partners who provided feedback during user-testing of the platform.

Suggested Citation Arizona Department of Health Services, 2024. Arizona Social Vulnerability Index, ArcGIS StoryMaps; Esri.  https://adhsgis.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=4d003f3686be44cfb846ba5362d133bb