How Overcrowding Influences Emotional Well-Being

Are there places in your community facing overcrowding issues?

Emotional well-being (EWB)—here defined as one’s ability to overcome adversity and/or reach one’s fullest potential—has been shown to increase cognitive function, immunity, and longevity; it has also been associated with higher graduation rates, productivity, and life satisfaction. Understanding EWB and the impact is has on your community is vital to creating stronger places.

Overcrowding has been linked to factors that influence EWB—there have been many studies looking into the influence of overcrowding on the mental, emotional, and physical health of both children and adults. While concrete answers have been elusive, data can help identify places that may be overcrowded, and thus may need more help achieving healthy EWB levels for residents.

Here is a map of Washington D.C. showing census tracts with high concentrations of overcrowded housing units and low levels of educational attainment — information that could be useful to further investigate these two social and environmental factors influencing EWB. (Use your mouse to interact with this map and explore the charts with additional data in the toolbar.)

Areas in dark blue or purple are estimated to have a relatively high concentration of residents with both low educational attainment and overcrowded housing units. (This measure of overcrowded housing units was calculated by mySidewalk from 2010–2014 ACS 5-year estimates by adding together all owner and renter occupied housing units with more than one person per room. For more information on the use of overcrowding measures, see the U.S. HUD resource here.)

This map can be used to help direct resources to the places in D.C. where they are needed most, potentially increasing EWB for residents. For example, the annotated census tract (1) on the map highlights an area where there is a high concentration of overcrowded housing units and low educational attainment. According to ACS data, this is a place where 30% of residents over the age of 25 do not have high school degrees and 13% of houses are overcrowded, thus identifying it as an area where EWB could be at risk.

To learn more about this data and its importance in your city, check out Social Indicators of Community Health.

Recently, mySidewalk participated in the Opportunity Project by working with the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General to reveal EWB levels in communities across the country. To identify areas within your community with a high concentration of overcrowded housing units and low educational attainment, log in to mySidewalk and apply the “Overcrowding and Low Educational Attainment” Template. Not a mySidewalk customer? Sign up for a free trial here.

About mySidewalk: mySidewalk is a data tool for people who want to understand places. With the ability to instantly answer thousands of community questions, mySidewalk makes it easy for anyone to use data to make better, more confident decisions.

About the Author: Jordan Shipley is a researcher at mySidewalk and graduate Student at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Jordan will be graduating with a degree in economics in spring of 2017, is a big fan of data, and (fun fact) happens to be an amazing musician. Don’t believe us? Proof.