SVI-Capstone's repositories
a_tale_of_two_cities.github.io
A Codeup Capstone Project
svi_capstone
In 2011 The CDC created the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). The SVI is a scale that predicts a population's vulnerability in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. COVID is the first global pandemic since the development of this measure. We evaluated the effectiveness of utilizing SVI as a tool to predict COVID case count per 100,000 individuals in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas. Using exploratory data analysis, we were able to identify localized community-specific and highly vulnerable subgroups and from them engineer features that were better than SVI at predicting case count. We found that the best indicator of case count in both cities was total socioeconomic need. Over-reliance on SVI during pandemic type natural disasters may lead to vulnerable populations missing out on critical resources. With this in mind, we recommend targeting resources based on socioeconomic need, exploring additional cities to determine how predictive SVI is more broadly, and investigating underlying city differences that make SVI more or less predictive.