Office of Community Services:
Data Poster


Click here to read the introduction to the data posters.   The file is in .pdf format.

Introduction

In 1993 Congress enacted a law, the Family Preservation and Support Services Act, which allows states to receive an infusion of dollars to develop or expand services to children and families. These services are intended to support families who, for the reasons of poverty, isolation, or lack of parenting experience, may require extra help in raising their children. These services are also intended to preserve families who may already have displayed problems resulting in abuse or neglect and who need extra assistance in maintaining their children safely at home.

The purpose of the portrait is to assist Louisiana parishes in continuing to plan at the local level for new and expanded services. Another purpose of the portraits is to help provide a more coordinated approach to supporting families. The hope of the Louisiana Department of Social Services, Office of Community Services, in issuing this updated portrait is that each parish will use the information to stimulate growth in services for children and families based on the data about needs across the state.

The Parish Portrait contains information relevant to family and child well-being in Louisiana and is divided into several sections. The first section, entitled "Summary Measures", provides a general overview on how parishes rank on broad well-being indicators. In the sections that follow, textual and graphical information is provided on parish-specific data. The following sections are included: Overview, Local Economic Conditions, Child Welfare, Maternal and Child Health, Education, Juvenile Justice, and Substance Abuse.

Data were collected and analyzed by the Louisiana Population Data Center. The portraits were prepared by Melissa O. Stainback with the assistance of Brett Hebert.

Parish Profile Summary Measures

 

Summary indexes of risk indicators were produced by using two basic statistical techniques -- factor analysis and the calculation of z-scores. Factor analysis is a procedure that groups multiple indicators into categories by identifying similarities among them. A factor score for each of the risk items is calculated to indicate the strength of its association with each of the categories. The individual items that score highest within each category are weighted by these factor scores and summed. This procedure reduced the risk indicators reported in this profile to six identifiable categories as follows:

Summary Category Risk Indicators
Family Structure Percent of female headed households with children under 5, 1990
Percent of female headed households with children under 18, 1990
Poverty and
Unemployment		 Percent children under 5 living in poverty, 1990
Percent children under 18 living in poverty, 1990
Median family income, 1990
Unemployment Rate, 1996
Income Transfer
Recipients		 Percent receiving aid to families with dependent children, 1996
Percent families with dependent children receiving food stamps, 1996
Percent families with dependent children receiving medicaid benefits
Percent families with dependent children receiving social security benefits, 1995
Educational Stability Number of suspensions per 1000, 1994-95
Number of expulsions per 1000, 1994-95
Percent not registered in public schools, 1994-95
Disruptive Events Percent of births to teens, 1995
Children in custody / Under supervision (per 1000 children under 18), 1996
School dropouts (per 1000 children under 18), 1994-95
Infant mortality rates, 1991-1995
Proportion of youth in foster care, 1996
Low Birthweight Percent low birthweight, 1995


We then converted the summary category scores for each parish to z-scores, which are standardized measures of deviation from the mean score of all parishes combined. The z-scores reported in this publication represent the relative extent to which individual parishes score above or below the mean score for the state, where negative scores are below the state average and positive scores are above the state average. Because these are standardized scores, comparisons can be made across parishes. Finally, we rank ordered the z-scores by parish, where a ranking of 1 reflects the parish with the least risk and a ranking of 64 reflects the parish with the highest risk, for that indicator.

Parish Profile Summary Measures

Parish Rank Order (1=lowest risk; 64=highest risk)
Family Structure Poverty and
Unemployment		 Income Transfer Educational Stability Disruptive Events Low Birthweight
Newborns
Acadia 28 38 39 40 26 47.5
Allen 29 41 19 42 42 41
Ascension 16 7 13 11 12 32.5
Assumption 30 36 33 34 11 52
Avoyelles 41 57 49 55 31 43
Beauregard 6 9 7 26 8 5.5
Bienville 39 56 55 61 15 62
Bossier 25 12 5 6 14 18
Caddo 58 32 41 19 43 50
Calcasieu 26 14 11 31 17 30
Caldwell 20 42 26 23 60 1
Cameron 1 1 1 4 3 27.5
Catahoula 23 60 42 51 25 2
Claiborne 56 51 51 29 7 55.5
Concordia 54 46 54 53 45 45.5
De Soto 57 49 45 39 33 40
East Baton Rouge 42 13 24 44 18 50
East Carroll 64 64 64 7 62 25.5
East Feliciana 40 25 34 48 56 38
Evangeline 9 44 60 14 24 59
Franklin 37 54 48 21 58 34
Grant 18 29 28 45 55 3
Iberia 38 27 40 15 37 39
Iberville 49 37 53 32 36 36.5
Jackson 35 31 22 41 30 22.5
Jefferson 24 5 14 64 28 27.5
Jefferson Davis 10 21 15 16 19 17
La Salle 3 15 6 9 27 12
Lafayette 21 8 10 52 5 32.5
Lafourche 8 17 17 18 35 5.5
Lincoln 45 18 27 50 64 50
Livingston 4 3 4 33 6 22.5
Madison 62 62 61 49 59 43
Morehouse 55 58 52 3 63 16
Natchitoches 59 52 44 60 54 19.5
Orleans 63 50 63 25 61 60
Ouachita 51 33 38 38 44 30
Plaquemines 5 19 30 2 13 11
Pointe Coupee 27 39 43 58 9 53.5
Rapides 34 20 32 36 16 22.5
Red River 60 61 47 63 20 64
Richland 48 55 56 24 57 63
Sabine 31 40 20 12 49 7.5
St. Bernard 11 6 9 62 21 9.5
St. Charles 17 4 8 46 4 35
St. Helena 43 43 50 1 41 22.5
St. James 50 35 37 59 23 45.5
St. John the Baptist 19 11 25 43 1 58
St. Landry 46 53 59 22 40 53.5
St. Martin 22 23 21 13 51 47.5
St. Mary 32 30 36 47 34 14.5
St. Tammany 7 2 3 28 29 4
Tensas 61 63 62 57 53 7.5
Terrebonne 12 22 23 54 39 30
Union 13 24 12 8 22 36.5
Vermilion 15 26 18 20 10 13
Vernon 2 10 2 10 2 19.5
Washington 52 47 57 37 50 55.5
Webster 53 34 31 17 47 43
West Baton Rouge 36 16 29 56 38 14.5
West Carroll 14 59 35 5 46 25.5
West Feliciana 47 48 16 27 32 61
Winn 33 28 46 30 52 61

OCS Page
Louisiana Population Data Center

Questions or problems with the information listed here? Email the Louisiana Population Data Center Representative.