GIS and Research Assistance to Children’s Defense Fund
The mission of the Children’s Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind® and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF is involved in programs and policies such as Early Childhood Education, Benefit Outreach, Child Care Assistance, Help Me Grow and Healthy Start to provide young children, especially from poor families, and their parents the opportunity to gain quality education, child care, lead healthy lives and receive tax return assistance. CDF-Ohio collects data on all of these programs for all counties in Ohio.
The Kirwan Insititute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University assisted CDF-Ohio to study the spatial distribution of their programs and the beneficiaries. CDF, in collaboration with Kids Count, provided the relevant data and the Kirwan Institute prepared the following maps displaying demographic and program related data.
Map 1: Population Density – 2004
Map 1 displays the spatial distribution of population in the state of Ohio. Franklin, Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Summit, Lucas and Montgomery counties have highest population densities in the State.
Map 2: Child Population
High child population, as percentage of total population, in counties is clustered in the western part of the State. Holmes county has the highest percentage of children in the State.
Map 3: Poverty
The Appalachian Region in the Southeast displays the highest levels of poverty in the State. High poverty continues to be a challenge for Southeast Ohio.
Map 4: Child Poverty
Child poverty is linked to the overall poverty of the Appalachian region. The map displays this phenomenon with more Southeastern counties showing high child poverty rates.
Map 5: Unemployment rate
The economically distressed areas of the Appalachian region contribute to high unemployment rates in this region’s counties. Thus, most of the Southeastern counties of Ohio show higher rates of unemployment.
Map 6: Median Household Income
Counties in the Appalachian Region display low household income. In addition, counties that support the suburban population of the three big cities in Ohio – Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati – show high household income.
Map 7: Total Births – 2002
The absolute number of births is correlated to the population density. Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Lucas, Summit and Montgomery counties have high number of births in the State.
Map 8: Total number of births to unmarried parents – 2002
Franklin, Hamilton, Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, Stark and Lucas counties display a higher number of such births which could be attributed to high population densities in these counties.
Map 9: Percentage births to teen mothers
63 counties report higher than 10% of all births to teen mothers. A large number of counties in southern Ohio display this phenomenon.
Map 10: Percentage of births with late or no prenatal care – 2002
Most of the rural counties in the state display the lack of proper prenatal care with higher percentages attributed to north central counties.
Map 11: Number of births covered by Medicaid
Only 15 counties display number of births covered by Medicaid which are higher than 500. Franklin, Cuyahoga and Hamilton show highest of number of births covered by Medicaid. Some of the rural counties also indicate higher Medicaid Birth rates.
Map 12: Percentage of Medicaid babies with low birth weights - 2002
Counties with high percentage of babies covered by Medicaid and have low birth weights are distributed randomly in the state. 64 counties display this phenomenon.
Map 13: Percentage of non-Medicaid babies with low birth weights – 2002
Only half of the counties which reported Medicaid babies with low birth weights, reported non-Medicaid with low birth weight. 26 counties in the state reported low birth weights for both Medicaid and non-Medicaid babies.
Map 14: Number of Help Me Grow newborn visits completed – 2004
Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties show the highest numbers of newborn visits in 2004 under the ‘Help Me Grow’ program.
Map 15: Number of Help Me Grow ‘At Risk’ children served – 2004
This map displays the spatial distribution of ‘At risk’ children served. 12 counties show higher number of children served. Smaller number of children served correlates with the low population densities of these counties.
Map 16: Number of Help Me Grow ‘Part C’ children served – 2004
Franklin, Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Montgomery counties display the highest number of ‘Part C’ children served. These account for more than 800 children served by each of these counties.
Map 17: Total number of Help Me Grow children served – 2004
Franklin, Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Lucas counties show the highest number of children served under the ‘Help Me Grow’ program. Cuyahoga accounts for more than 15,000 children served.
Map 18: Number of persons enrolled in Healthy Start/Healthy Families programs
The absolute number of persons enrolled in the program is highest for Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties, attributed to high population densities of urban counties. Most of the other counties have 10,000 or less person enrolled.
Map 19: Number of certified family child care providers
Only five counties have more than 500 certified child care providers. Cuyahoga county has nearly 3,000 such providers.
Map 20: Distribution of Child Care centers by location
This map displays the locations of child care centers in the state of Ohio. Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery, Lucas, Stark, Summit, Mahoning and Trumbull counties show concentration of these centers.
Map 21: Distribution of Child Care centers by total number of spaces
Counties with higher population – Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery, Lucas and Summit show a higher number and concentration of child care spaces.
Map 22: Number of licensed child care spaces
This map displays the spatial distribution of the number of licensed child care spaces in the state of Ohio. Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Montgomery, Franklin, Delaware, Stark, Summit, Cuyahoga, Lake Lorain and Lucas have more than 4,500 spaces.
Map 23: Distribution of child care spaces as percentage of total population
As percentage of population, child care spaces are almost evenly distributed in the State. Most of the counties have child care spaces above 1.5% of the respective county population.
Map 24: Number of allocated Head Start slots
The number of allocated slots corresponds to the population density of the counties. Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Lucas show more than 2000 slots allocated to each county
Map 25: Head Start centers by House Districts
This map displays the Head Start centers distribution based on House Districts
Map 26: Head Start centers by Senate Districts
This map displays the Head Start centers distribution based on Senate Districts
Map 27: Number of persons enrolled in child care assistance program
Comparison, based on absolute numbers of enrollment in the program, shows higher number for counties with high population densities
Map 28: Number of Early Childhood Education (ECE) slots – 2005-2006
This map displays the distribution of ECE slot allocations for all the counties in Ohio.
Map 29: Number of Early Learning Initiative (ELI) slots – 2005-2006
In correlation with high population densities, Southwestern and Northeastern counties display a higher number of allocated ELI slots.
Map 30: 2005-2006 allocations for Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Early Learning Initiative (ELI) programs
This maps display the total number of slots allocated to these programs. Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties have more than 1,000 slots.
