CA Regional Opportunity Index

The Regional Opportunity Index (ROI) is comprised of two indices which assess the relative well-being of people and places for census tracts in the state of California. This document describes the data and the methods used to construct these indices, as well as data limitations that require caution when interpreting and using them. The ROI is constructed using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data, the California Department of Education, the California Department of Public Health, and several other data sources. To increase reliability of the estimates at the census tract level, we use the 5-year estimates from ACS, and combine multiple years of data for some of the other data sources. The actual years of data included in any given set of estimates is described on the ROI maps and in the downloadable data.