In 2023, UK Cooperative Extension conducted a Statewide Community Needs Assessment.  The survey contained 4 sections: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Youth Development, Family and Individual Development, and Community and Economic Development.  Each section contained survey questions about specific topics and possible initiatives and residents were asked to indicate the level of importance of each one.  There were around 36,000 respondents to the survey and the results were placed online on a dynamic dashboard website.  

To make the survey results useful for local decision-making as communities conducted the Extension plan of work process (or use the results for grant proposals, etc), I was asked to develop, compile, and provide secondary data that related to the issues covered in the survey.  Each county received 4 issues of Kentucky: By The Numbers with secondary data related to that section of the survey.  

In order to create the issues of Kentucky: By The Numbers for the community needs assessment, 63 different data sources were examined for possible data to include.  Most data sources contained multiple variables.   For example, data from the American Community Survey drew from nearly 20 different tables and 13 separate tables were used from County Business Patterns.  To ensure that the data were the most recent available, we used data release schedules for each source to time the data downloads.  All told, we used 312 individual variables resulting in 411 columns of data (not including data used in custom calculations).  Providing data for each of Kentucky’s 120 counties as well as the state, this added up to 49,731 individual data points.  

To ease the use and access to the secondary data, data sources (including table numbers and URLS) were provided on each issue.  In addition, each file was exported to a pdf file so that community members could use the dynamic dashboard with the survey results and still have easy access to the secondary data.  Four different webpages were created for the Kentucky: By The Numbers website – one for each section of the survey - and all 484 pdf files were uploaded.