If you go to the doctor for a checkup, you’ll get a report that details your weight, your blood pressure, your A1C levels, all that.
Could the same thing be done for an entire community, not for its physical health but its civic health? Is there even such a thing as civic health? Three organizations have tried to do just that: Brown University (through its Information Futures Lab), Internews (a California-based nonprofit that supports independent media) and Press Forward (a grant-making organization that supports local news media) have joined together to devise a measurement tool called the Civic Information Index.
It uses 21 data points, organized into four general categories, to come up with a total score for each county in the country (or, in the case of Virginia with our unique system of local government, each county and city).
You can find those data points in the accompanying box, along with my quibble about one of them. For now, let’s dive into what the index says.
Here’s the short version:
Falls Church and Loudoun County are rated as the “healthiest” communities in the state in terms of civic health. Both get a perfect 100 score, meaning they rate in the 100th (or highest) percentile in the country. Arlington County, Fairfax County and Goochland County score in the 99th percentile. Albemarle County and Hanover County place in the 98th percentile.
Three counties in Southwest Virginia rank as the least healthy in the state — and the country. Dickenson County places in the 5th percentile nationally, Lee County in the 4th, Buchanan County in the 3rd.
And yes, there are 15 counties in other states that score flat-out zero. One of them is just across the border from us: McDowell County, West Virginia.
As we move into the longer version, you may have already noticed a trend: Affluent localities score much better than poorer ones, even though income is not one of the 21 data points used in scoring (although one gets that indirectly by measuring what percentage of the population lives in high-poverty neighborhoods). That affluence, though, is strongly correlated with various positive measures — longer life expectancy, more charitable giving, more volunteerism and more civic engagement, in general.
Affluence, though, is not the sole determinant. Many of the localities that scored highest nationally (and often got the same 100th percentile score that Falls Church and Loudoun County did) are in the rural Midwest and rural New England. Perhaps Norman Rockwell was right when he painted that famous picture of a town hall meeting in Vermont (although his home county of Bennington County ranked just in the 74th percentile), although I prefer the song “The Great Midwest” that the great philosopher John Mellencamp released back when he was still going by John Cougar.
While affluence isn’t the only way to have a community with strong civic health, poverty seems a certain way to have poor civic health. The researchers found four types of places that consistently scored low: those counties in Appalachia, and counties with Native American reservations or large percentages of Black and Latino residents. The reason: All those places tend to be afflicted with higher levels of poverty, which hurts lots of civic health scores: higher unemployment, less education, less philanthropy and so forth.
Now let’s dive into the data.
Civic health doesn’t mean a lack of controversy
Loudoun County has been ground zero in Virginia for school-related debates over parental involvement and lots of other things. Last year its commonwealth’s attorney was voted out of office. The school board has been almost entirely reshaped through retirements and election results. Hanover County has seen controversy, as well: A routine commendation for Girl Scouts who had completed Gold Award projects became controversial because one of them had created “Banned Book Nooks” to feature more than 75 titles removed from the school libraries. Her commendation was “amended” — she said “censored” — to avoid mention of her project.
Nonetheless, Loudoun scored 100 and Hanover 98. That’s because the index rewards civic participation; it doesn’t measure how that participation played out. Being involved in politics pumps up a score, but the index is neutral on outcomes: Loudoun County generally votes Democratic; Hanover County goes Republican. They couldn’t be more dissimilar politically, but in terms of civic health, they’re about the same.
Voter turnout is key indicator of strong civic health
While the index draws on 21 types of data, there’s one measurement that can serve as shorthand: voter turnout. The localities with strong civic health have high voter turnout; those with poor civic health have low voter turnout. This is also one of the few measures that people can immediately change. Creating more civic organizations, raising access to health care — those things take collective action and are much harder to accomplish. But we can all make sure we vote. Many don’t, though. Every election shows a wide gap between some localities (generally affluent ones) with high turnout and others (generally poorer ones) with low turnout.
That helps explain some of the scores we see. For instance, Goochland County typically has the highest turnout rate in Virginia. It scored 99 overall. Buchanan County often has the lowest turnout rate, and that’s one of many things that pulled it down to the 3rd percentile. (An unrelated observation: Both of those counties are now strong Republican counties, so don’t fall for the old stereotype that increased turnout helps Democrats. There are both low- and high-turnout localities that lean both ways.)
Access to news and information is a key measure of civic health
The index includes six measures that relate to “news and information.” One is the percentage of households with access to broadband. That may seem pretty obvious. Here are two that are more interesting: the number of library visits and the number of Facebook pages that are devoted to “the public good.” Here’s maybe the most interesting of all: the number of news outlets in each county. “More news outlets are associated with higher civic health,” the index says. In other words, a more informed citizenry is deemed a healthier citizenry. The measures come from a study at Northwestern University that attempted to identify “news deserts” around the country.
I’ve quibbled with the study’s authors over their data: They have a hard time dealing with regional online sites such as Cardinal News that cover communities without a physical office. Until recently, we had no office at all. We now have some space in Roanoke, but most of our journalists are outside Roanoke, spread from Bristol to Richmond. The report also has missed some weekly newspapers in Virginia. In general, I think the Northwestern numbers undercount news organizations and therefore overstate the severity of news deserts. Nonetheless, their report is generally accurate, and the more important point is that access to news is a key part of civic health.
I’d also be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point out that Cardinal exists only because, well, people give us money. We believe news should be widely available and not barricaded behind a paywall. We charge nothing to read us, but journalists don’t work for free. You can help support independent journalism by becoming a member. We’re also a nonprofit, so there’s no money going to pay shareholders, but it is going to support the civic health of Southwest and Southside (and, since we have a statewide readership, maybe other parts of Virginia, too).
Anyway, now back to the data. Besides computing an overall score, the index also ranks localities through four categories. Let’s see how Virginia localities fare.
News and information: Rappahannock County is tops in Virginia, Buckingham County is last
Little ol’ Rappahannock County (population 7,348 in the last census) posts a perfect score in this category. It ranks in the 100th percentile in the country, the only Virginia locality to score that high. In second place in Virginia is Falls Church, in the 98th percentile with James City County third, in the 93rd percentile.
Buckingham County is Virginia’s lowest-ranked county, in the fourth percentile. In other categories, Buckingham ranks higher, but its overall score (in the 20th percentile) is dragged down by its low score in the news and information category. One of the things that drags that score down is the lack of a weekly newspaper in the county.
The researchers couldn’t find enough data to rank five Virginia localities in this category: Buena Vista, Fairfax city, Franklin city, Norton and Williamsburg.
Civic participation: Fairfax city and Falls Church are tops in Virginia, Lee County is last
Fairfax city and Falls Church ranked in the 100th percentile nationally, with Goochland County in the 99th, and Albemarle County, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Fauquier County and Hanover County in the 98th.
All these localities ranked especially high for charitable giving (which is obviously made easier by their affluence). All but Charlottesville also ranked high for voter turnout; Charlottesville is lower because it’s a college town, but it made up scores in other ways, such as an especially high rate of civic associations.
Lee County is last in Virginia, in the 4th percentile nationally. In this category, Lee County ranked quite high for volunteerism — 65th percentile — but near the bottom in almost everything else. Its lowest category here was voter turnout.
Equity and justice: Falls Church, Highland County and Loudoun County rank highest; Essex County last
I think this category is misnamed because the title conjures up an image different from what the measurements are. This isn’t about so-called “wokeness,” this is about life expectancy, medical debt, poverty and teenagers neither in school or in the workplace. That said, Falls Church, Highland County and Loudoun County all rank in the 99th percentile nationally. Falls Church and Loudoun aren’t surprising, given the affluence of those Northern Virginia localities. Rural Highland County, wedged up against the West Virginia line, is. I hate to cast shade on Highland’s ranking, but this could be a product of what’s called “the tyranny of small numbers,” meaning its small population (2,232 in the last census) skews percentages. Highland shows up as having no high-poverty neighborhoods or idle youths. On the other hand, medical debt is low and life expectancy is long and those also boost Highland’s score, so there’s that.
I should also add that Highland just barely missed a mention above under “news and information,” where it ranks in the 97th percentile nationally, with especially high scores on library visits and “public good” Facebook pages. Highland is obviously quite rural (it’s mostly mountains and sheep) and not affluent, so here’s an example of how a county can achieve a high score without having a lot of money.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Essex County ranks dead last — in the 0 percentile nationally. Buchanan County and Norton don’t fare much better; they’re in the 1st percentile nationally with Galax in the 2nd. Low life expectancy, high medical debt and concentrations of poverty conspire against all these localities.
Health and opportunity: Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County rank highest; Buchanan County last
None of these rankings should surprise anyone: Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun all score in the 100th percentile; Albemarle County, Goochland County and Poquoson in the 99th; Alexandria, Fauquier County, Fluvanna County, Hanover County and Stafford County in the 98th. Affluence does have its privileges.
Buchanan County comes in last in the state, in the 3rd percentile nationally. Lee County is one notch higher, in the 4th percentile. Dickenson County is in the 5th, but all within the overall trend of Appalachian counties scoring low on health and economic measures.
Volunteerism runs higher in rural areas
There’s one category that tends to have lower scores in affluent (and more urban) areas than in poorer (and more rural) ones. That’s volunteerism.
Falls Church ranked in the 100th percentile nationally overall but only 30th for volunteerism.
Buchanan County finished also near the bottom, in the 3rd percentile, but was 65th for volunteerism.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions there, but I’d take that as one good sign in an otherwise dispiriting report.
You can explore all this data here.
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