Creating the Comprehensive Community Vulnerability Index

Abstract This study quantified the relative vulnerability of 3,141 counties in the United States. We built a comprehensive community vulnerability index (CCVI) that considers household, business, and public levels. Eighteen variables related to household socioeconomic characteristics, business size and diversity, local government economic size, social capital, and net immigration were used. In the existing vulnerability indices (CRE, SVI, and SoVI), the indices were constructed by using socioeconomic characteristics of the household. In addition to socioeconomic variables, this study sought to expand the concept of “place-based” by considering the business structure within the community and the potential ability to maintain the existing order of the community to construct a comprehensive index. Additionally, by providing the relative vulnerability of the community at each level (private, business, public), each dimension can provide evidence on which areas are more vulnerable and need remediation than others. We expect that the CCVI can be broadly extended to be used in various forms. In this study, we extend the vulnerability index by including exogenous variables such as climate change. In particular, the extended climate-enhanced CCVI in this study shows that the existing vulnerability index can be strengthened by incorporating extreme climate events.