Connecting Knowledge and Policy: The Promise of Community Indicators in the United States

benchmarking, community indicators, indicator development and construction, indicator theories, quality of life,

Binational Vital Signs: A Quality of Life Indicator Program for the San Diego-Tijuana Metropolitan Region -super-1

This is a study of a binational community indicator program for the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area (SDTMA). The key objective of the research was to produce a citizen-generated community indicator program (CIP). The study is closely based on the work of the two focus groups held in the two cities and offers a small program that has immediate practical potential for implementation. The program consists of a suite of thirty-five indicators for which data has been identified and provided. Fifteen of the indicators apply to Tijuana, twenty to San Diego. The program is built around principles of community well-being or quality of life (QOL). It is the first subregional attempt at the scale of the United States-Mexico Bi-National Region (BNR) to integrate existing environmental, social, and economic data into a single coherent program to inform community leaders about the condition of the SDTMA. The region covered by the CIP generally consists of the urbanized core of metropolitan Tijuana, the city of San Diego, and associated cities like Chula Vista and El Cajon within the southern part of San Diego County. Copyright 2004 by The Policy Studies Association.

Creative Accounts: Reimagining Culture and Wellbeing by Tapping into the Global Movement to Redefine Progress

A citizen-based global progress measurement movement has emerged in the past decade, with the potential for realisation of a new paradigm for democracy, good governance and authentic cultural engagement. The benefits already resulting from this movement appear to be significant. These include new and more dynamic forms of democratic engagement; the demonstration of clearer linkages between strong democratic and human rights regimes, and broader individual and societal wellbeing; new ways to define and measure a 'healthy' democracy; and, perhaps most importantly, a re-examination of the nature of progress and democracy in the twenty-first century. The extent to which cultural indicators have, or have not, featured in the emergence of the global progress measurement movement and its democratising ambitions is the focus of this chapter, raising serious questions for proponents of both perspectives

Rating Health and Social Indicators for Use with Indigenous Communities: A Tool for Balancing Cultural and Scientific Utility

Community participation, Health status indicators, Indigenous populations, Reliability and validity, Programme planning,