This dataset is part of the Geographical repository maintained by Opendatasoft.This dataset contains data for zip codes 5 digits in United States of America.ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) are approximate area representations of U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ZIP Code service areas that the Census Bureau creates to present statistical data for each decennial census. The Census Bureau delineates ZCTA boundaries for the United States, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands once each decade following the decennial census. Data users should not use ZCTAs to identify the official USPS ZIP Code for mail delivery. The USPS makes periodic changes to ZIP Codes to support more efficient mail delivery.Processors and tools are using this data.EnhancementsAdd ISO 3166-3 codes.Simplify geometries to provide better performance across the services.Add administrative hierarchy.

Summary

The State of Early Education and Care in Boston: Supply, Demand, Affordability, and Quality, is the first in what is planned as a recurrent landscape survey of early childhood, preschool and childcare programs in every neighborhood of Boston. It focuses on potential supply, demand and gaps in child-care seats (availability, quality and affordability). This report’s estimates set a baseline understanding to help focus and track investments and policy changes for early childhood in the city.

This publication is a culmination of efforts by a diverse data committee representing providers, parents, funding agencies, policymakers, advocates, and researchers. The report includes data from several sources, such as American Community Survey, Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education, Boston Public Health Commission, City of Boston, among others. For detailed information on methodology, findings and recommendations, please access the full report here

The first dataset contains all Census data used in the publication. Data is presented by neighborhoods:

• Population 0 – 5 years;
• Population 0 – 2 years;
• Population 3 – 5 years;
• Race/ethnicity for children 0 – 4 years (White, non-Hispanic; Black; Asian; Hispanic/Latinx);
• Family type (married couples, female householder, male householder);
• Poverty status;
• Family median income in the past 12 months;
• Average cost of care as a percentage of median family income (infant, preschool);
• Share of families that cannot afford care (infant, preschool)

The Boston Planning & Development Agency Research Division analyzed 2013-2017 American Community Survey data to estimate numbers by ZIP-Code. The Boston Opportunity Agenda combined that data by the approximate neighborhoods and estimated cost of care and affordability.

Additional notes:

• Record Type: Each record represents a ZIP-Code defined neighborhood. See list below for detailed information on Boston ZIP-Codes used to create each one of the 15 neighborhoods.
• Data Quality: Numbers presented here came from 2013-2017 American Community Survey data. Therefore, these are ESTIMATES and have margin of errors. The smaller the geographical unit, the greater the margin of error. The Boston Planning & Development Agency analyzed the data to estimate numbers by ZIP-Code.
• Race/Ethnicity: Non-White Hispanics may be double counted due to data limitations.
• Cost of Care: The average cost of care as a percentage of median family income was computed assuming the annual average cost of infant care was $19,877 and the average cost of preschool care was $ 13,771 (Childcare Aware of America, 2019). For each neighborhood we estimated the impact of child care (infant and preschool) on its median annual family income.
• Affordability: The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) sets a standard regarding the affordability of child care, where the annual cost of child care should not exceed 10 percent of household annual income. Using this 10% threshold, we estimated that to afford market rate infant care, a family’s annual income would have to be at least $198,770. The census income bracket closest to this income was a family income of $150,000– 199,999. To afford preschool care, a family's annual income should be at least $137,710. Thus, the census income bracket that encompass this income is $125,000 - 149,999. For both infant and preschool care, we underestimated the number of families that can afford care.

This dataset contains daily aggregated measurements of daily PM2.5 from ambient wildfire smoke in the contiguous United States, spanning from 2006 to 2016. The data is sourced from a study by Childs et al. (2022), titled "Daily Local-Level Estimates of Ambient Wildfire Smoke PM2.5 for the Contiguous US" published in Environmental Science & Technology. To compute the standardized weight across different zip codes, we computed the weight calculation on a 10km grids. To compute the weight, we obtain area-weights that add up to 1 in each polygon of zipcodes. This enabled us to calculate the smoke values per zipcode for the aforementioned period. Those interested in replicating our data processing pipeline can access it at https://github.com/NSAPH-Data-Processing/smoke_aggregation.