Population Input

By default, the tool will try to run calculations using the 2010 US Census data for California. If you want to replace this input, see the notes below. Population groups are no longer required to be defined by race–ethnicity; users may now classify populations using any grouping scheme that fits their analysis needs. For example, groups can be organized by race–ethnicity, income quartiles, CalEnviroScreen quartiles, or any other custom demographic or vulnerability metric.

Population input files can be shapefiles (created using ArcGIS, QGIS, or coding languages like Python or R) or feather files (best created in Python).

The population file needs to have the following columns in order to run properly. Column names are bolded with descriptions following.

  • POP_ID: ID column, just needs to be unique
  • YEAR: year of data, will not be reported but is good practice to be included
  • START_AGE: the starting age of the bin
  • END_AGE: the ending age of the bin
  • AGE_BIN: the age bin for this population sample. It should be formatted as START_AGE TO END_AGE (e.g., 0TO0, 20TO24). Age bins should be non-overlapping (e.g., not 20TO25 and 25TO30).
  • Columns representing each of your individual population estimates per group.
  • TOTAL: the total population for that age bin and geographic area

If you are using the default 2010 Census data for California, the groups will be:

  • ASIAN: non-Hispanic Asian
  • BLACK: non-Hispanic Black
  • HISLA: Hispanic of any race
  • INDIG: non-Hispanic Native American
  • PACIS: non-Hispanic Pacific Islander
  • WHITE: non-Hispanic White
  • OTHER: non-Hispanic Other