UC GIS Week

Analyzing the Impact of COVID-19 on College Enrollment Rates Across California High Schools: A Geospatial Approach:

This study examines the impact of various demographic and socioeconomic factors on college enrollment rates among high schools across California, with a primary focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic altered these trends. By analyzing county-level enrollment data before and during the pandemic, we identified key patterns related to gender, race, and socioeconomic status. The research further investigates the correlation between the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and income levels, highlighting geographical disparities and pinpointing counties most affected by the pandemic. Data from the California Department of Education and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was utilized to perform a geostatistical analysis. A paired t-test was conducted to evaluate the significance of changes in enrollment rates across counties pre- and post-pandemic. Additionally, polynomial regression was employed to trace enrollment trends, assessing the overall significance of the pandemic’s impact. This study provides crucial insights into spatial disparities in college enrollment across California, particularly in the context of COVID-19, offering valuable implications for education policy and resource allocation.

Health Atlas: Visualizing Place-Based Data to Identify and Address Health Disparities:

The UCSF Health Atlas (healthatlas.ucsf.edu) is an interactive mapping website that helps users explore place-based characteristics and see how they relate at a population level across the United States. Health Atlas includes data from all 50 states in the U.S., the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The tool visualizes data at the census tract, ZIP code, congressional district, county, CBSA, PUMA, and state level. Health Atlas is built upon a curated database of over 120 nationally available variables including data from the American Community Survey (e.g., demographics, socioeconomics), CDC PLACES (e.g., health and health care), EJ Screen (e.g. environmental exposures), and other sources (e.g., structural racism, income inequality, built environment).

GIS data for Land-use planning: the PlanSearch tool and California Zoning Atlas:

Plans and zoning maps are often sequestered on the individual webpages of local jurisdictions, complicating efforts to assess planning outcomes in aggregate, compare plans for inspiration in drafting updates, or monitor ongoing promises. Ultimately, adopted comprehensive plans commit the local government to long-term zoning, financing and development goals that guide the fortunes and health of the jurisdiction for the next ten to forty years. The lack of easily accessible data and oversight often causes even the loudest advocates of plans and planning to sometimes lament that the plan as a document is ineffectual. Nevertheless, their content represents years of considerable community input through participation in advisory committees and public meetings. Plans can also legally obligate local jurisdictions to act. To empower communities to make more informed plans and provide greater accountability for created plans, this talk showcases new planning data infrastructure throught he California Zoning Atlas and PlanSearch (PlanSearch.caes.ucdavis.edu).

Plansearch allows users to search across 58 county and 482 city general plans in California. Users can note that while nearly every plan mentions the term “golf course”, the term “climate justice” is rarely mentioned. Such efforts open greater opportunities for natural language processing and rapid plan evaluation. Similarly, the National Zoning Atlas represents a multi-state effort to stitch together the zoning maps of local jurisdictions with the primary objective of understanding where single family zoning spurs segregation. Such efforts help provide accountability for local jurisdictions.