The LVRC has created a longitudinal database consisting of over 300 indicators of community-well being in Lehigh and Northampton Counties. These indicators are assembled from federal, state, county, municipal and school district databases and reports. We have assembled these indicators into one central location in order to provide a regional resource for community groups, governments, businesses, academics and the larger community in the hopes of improving access to information and the generation of greater community dialogue about issues facing the region.

The indicators are available in three formats: Excel spreadsheets for statistical analyses; tabular reports for faster access to statistical information; and maps that depict the indicators by geographic boundary.

Technicial documentation is vital to use with these indicators as it provides valuable information about the source of the data, how the reporting entity defines each indicator, and whether the data has been manipulated (i.e., compuation of percentages). It is important to view this documentation in conjunction with the indicators as a reporting entity may change its definitions of indicators from year to year. In some instances a reporting entity may change the information they report for an indicator in a given year (i.e., change the percentage of students reported for high school drop out rate). To help reduce some confusion about these inconsistencies our documentation identifies the date that our indicators were entered into our system.

Nonetheless, this community-based information system is a valuable resource to the community as for the first time, it presents longitudinal data across a variety of measures of well-being. We hope that the users of this information excercise good ethical judgment as they use it to gain knowledge about the region.

Contact us for more specific information about the data and data sources if you have specific questions.