Escambia County gets low grades in a number of quality of life issues – such as crime and health – in a new math and statistics project conducted by a group of graduate students at the University of West Florida.
The eleven “data detectives” have been spending the fall semester going through databases for information on every county in the United States – 3,108. UWF Distinguished Professor Dr. Raid Amin oversees the project – the idea for which came to him while teaching a similar course in the summer of 2010.
“It was a one-time event only and it was strictly about crime rates,” said Amin. “The chair told me if I could put together a flyer, or syllabus, about the course. And I thought ‘how about putting together a quality of life index?’”
Ten of the 11 students are in UWF’s online Distance Learning program, and live all over the U-S. Amin says that enables them to look at the data with fresh eyes and the rare chance to work together as a group.
Part of the source data came from the Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development. Using that and other sources, the students whittled down their findings to four areas: education, financial, safety and health. But Amin says there are subcategories in all four.
“They found two for education (and) they’re still searching,” Amin said. “So then for example, we call maybe Security. Five subcategories, but they make up only one category. Each of those four (areas), that’s the weight of a quarter. None of those four gets any more weight than the other, regardless of how many sub-components it has.”
According to the Escambia County figures gleaned from the study by the Pensacola News Journal, Escambia has a worse crime rate per capita than 98% of all counties in the contiguous United States. And when it comes to quality of life, Escambia ranks near the bottom quarter.
Besides education and safety, financial was measured by median income, unemployment and poverty rates. And health was based on obesity and smoking. The Escambia County rates are then compared to the other counties in the U-S.
And lest you think Escambia County’s deficiencies are being singled out, Amin says the study shows how it’s similar to other counties across the nation.
“There are huge areas in the U.S. that have a similar score,” said Amin. “You would think usually local or your own county…and you think about those around you. But to think there may be 800 counties like us around us, you don’t think about it this way.”
The study shows higher quality of life in counties in the Northeast, Midwest and Rocky Mountains – while the Southeast have large pockets of lower quality. Locally, the counties surrounding Escambia – Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton, along with Baldwin County, Alabama – indicate a higher quality.
Amin says the next step in the project will added later this month – environmental data in the form of particulate matter.
While the data will not be put up for peer review, UWF’s Raid Amin is hoping that local officials can use the project -- what he calls a “useful tool” -- to shape future actions.
“Logically, statistics is (sic) essential for solid planning,” Amin said. “They add their own information, their own resources, but it’s a starting point. Maybe it gives some people a new perspective to realize where we are.”
As one example of how Escambia could improve its ranking is working to bring down the crime rate, says Amin, is the Pareto Principal – which says 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes.
A full report on the study will be posted online by the end of the current semester.