SAVI Community Information System

Abstract

SAVI helps organizations and researchers make data-informed decisions by 1) providing reliable data about Central Indiana communities; 2) creating actionable information; 3) developing tools for data analysis; and 4) building capacity, especially for nonprofit and community-based organizations, to use data effectively. The SAVI Community Information System is the nation’s largest spatially-enabled system of its type, providing detailed, geographically precise information needed to make data-informed decisions. SAVI contains a wealth of free data about the social, physical, and economic conditions of Central Indiana communities from counties to neighborhoods and census tracts, as well as information on thousands of non-profit and community-based organizations and programs. SAVI is a donor-supported, web-based system (www.savi.org) that allows users to create custom maps, graphs, charts, and data profiles of over 2,000 Central Indiana communities. SAVI supports research: selecting appropriate study area; identifying community-based research partners; identifying and managing nurse-led community health activities; understanding health effects of neighborhood poverty; identifying health disparities; environmental health/environmental justice; identifying socio-spatial health knowledge networks; and understanding social and physical neighborhood context and influences on obesity, leukemia treatment adherence, cancer screening rates, asthma, diabetes, and STDs. SAVI also supports community research: identifying community assets, assessing needs, planning and evaluating programs, identifying collaborators, supporting grant applications, strategic planning, and visualizing patterns and trends. This hands-on exhibit will showcase SAVI and the ways in which it can support community and researcher decisionmaking needs. We will present a poster and have live demonstrations of our interactive website that provides a wealth of data and analysis tools.