This layer provides 2020 Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) estimates for Virginia Block Groups. Percentile ranking values range from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater social vulnerability. SVI was modeled by OpenEnvironments. For more information, visit: https://github.com/OpenEnvironments/blockgroupvulnerability. 

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publishes a set of percentiles that compare US geographies by vulnerability across household, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic and housing themes. These Social Vulnerability Indexes (SVI) were originally intended to to help public health officials and emergency response planners identify communities that will need support around an event. They are generally valuable for any public interest that wants to relate themselves to needy communities by geography.

The SVI publication and its basis variables are provided at the Census tract level of geographic detail. The Census' American Community Survey is available down the to the block group level, however. Recasting the SVI methods at this lower level of geography allows it to be tied to thousands of other demographic variables available. Because the SVI relies on ACS variables only available at the tract level, a projection model needs to applied to approximate its results using blockgroup level ACS variables. The blockgroupvulnerability dataset casts a prediction for the CDCs logic for a new contribution to the Open Environments blockgroup series available on Harvard's dataverse platform.