The Association Between School SES and Neighborhood Environment – The Case of Spokane City

Spokane public elementary schools vary substantially in their socioeconomic profile. This project uses geographic information systems combined with data on food outlets, greenspace, street networks, and crime to characterize the neighborhood environments around 34 elementary schools in the Spokane Public School system. We ranked schools into three groups based on the percentage of children receiving free-and-reduced meals, and tested whether these groups differed in environmental indicators like crime rate, proximity to major roads (used as a proxy for exposure to air and noise pollution), access to healthy food, and walkability within the surrounding neighborhoods. We found that crime rate, neighborhood walkability and proximity to major roads were all positively and significantly associated with the percentage of children receiving free-and-reduced meals. Click here to see the interactive map.

Spatial Access to Health Services in Spokane County

Poor spatial access to health care services has been shown to directly impact health outcomes. This study maps an array of health services across Spokane county with the aim of identifying areas with poor spatial access. Click here to see the interactive map.