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Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Areas in city of Frederick are most socially vulnerable in county, Census data shows
Areas in and near the city of Frederick — particularly around Francis Scott Key Mall and Westview Business Park and next to Fort Detrick's Area B — are considered the most socially vulnerable in Frederick County. Social vulnerability is the demographic and socioeconomic factors of an area that harm communities that experience hazards or disasters, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Disasters can be natural or caused by humans, like extreme weather events or chemical spills, and disease outbreaks, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Demographic and socioeconomic factors that impact how socially vulnerable a community is include poverty, lack of access to transportation and crowded housing. ATSDR and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have created the Social Vulnerability Index to measure U.S. Census tracts across the country. SVI scores can range from 0 to 1, with 1 being the most socially vulnerable. SVI scores can help communities figure out where resources should be focused for people in need. The index uses 16 Census variables to identify communities that may need support before, during and after disasters. The variables are grouped into four categories, then combined into an overall social vulnerability score. The categories are socioeconomic status; household characteristics; racial and ethnic minority status; and housing type and transportation. In addition to having an overall SVI score, communities have scores for each category. The most recent SVI scores available on the SVI Interactive Map are from 2022. Social vulnerability in Frederick County in 2022 by U.S. Census tracts The entirety of Frederick County had a low SVI score of 0.1234 when compared nationwide, but certain tracts within the county have high scores compared to tracts across the U.S. The most socially vulnerable area in Frederick County in 2022 was a Census tract on the southeastern edge and just outside the city of Frederick, with a score of 0.8687. The tract includes a large portion of the Ballenger Creek community and encompasses I-270 from where the highway intersects with I-70 to where it crosses the Monocacy River. It also includes the entirety of Crestwood Boulevard. Locations in this tract include Francis Scott Key Mall, Westview Business Park and Industrial Center East, as well as neighborhoods around them. The second most socially vulnerable area in the county was a Census tract in central Frederick, running from Rosemont Avenue to Opossumtown Pike outside Fort Detrick's main campus. Its score is 0.8087. The Villa Estates, Antietam Village and College Estates communities fall within this tract. Some locations in this parcel include Heather Ridge School, an alternative school for middle and high schoolers, and Frederick Shopping Center. The third most socially vulnerable area was a smaller Census tract right next to the Golden Mile in west Frederick, with a score of 0.7543. This tract spans from a part of West Patrick Street to Shookstown Road, next to a residential community being built directly across from Fort Detrick's Area B. It also includes the entire Stonegate community. Area B is a 399-acre section of the base that is detached from the main campus, between Kemp Lane and Shookstown Road. The section was used as a test site for the Army's biological warfare program in the mid-20th century. After the program was ended in 1969, scientists disposed of hazardous waste in unlined trenches and pits in Area B, resulting in groundwater contamination. Army scientists have spent decades studying the contamination and the extent to which it has spread. These three Census tracts also had high SVI scores in 2020. Socioeconomic status vulnerability in Frederick County in 2022 by U.S. Census tracts Household characteristics vulnerability in Frederick County in 2022 by U.S. Census tracts Racial and ethnic minority status vulnerability in Frederick County in 2022 by U.S. Census tracts Housing type and transportation vulnerability in Frederick County in 2022 by U.S. Census tracts Unsurprising findings Frederick County's social vulnerability was included in the 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment, a document released every three years that illustrates the county's current picture of health and population. This assessment is part of the Local Health Improvement Process, a collaboration between the county health department, Frederick Health and the Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County. After the assessment comes out, a Local Health Improvement Plan is created outlining how to address these priorities and the county's health status through policies, programs and other initiatives. Rissah Watkins, director of the county health department's Office of Planning, Assessment and Communication, writes the assessment. When interviewed on Wednesday, Watkins said Frederick County is a mix of populated urban areas and rural areas. She said she generally expects to see areas with more people living there to 'light up more' on a social vulnerability map. She pointed out that that many Census tracts in the county with medium-high or high SVI scores are clustered around the city of Frederick, which makes sense given that it's a highly populated area. For example, when looking at specifically housing type and transportation vulnerability, the darkest areas are in Frederick and the southern part of the county, where people who commute to Washington, D.C., may want to live. Watkins said it isn't surprising those areas have higher SVI scores in this category because there are fewer housing options given the number of people there. In Frederick, dozens of community resources are concentrated in the area. However, Watkins said, other parts of the county are also socially vulnerable, even though there's fewer people living there, so the resources have to be spread out.
Washington Post
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data
Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. for the best experience. Curating reality is an old political game, but Trump's sweeping statistical purges are part of a broader attempt to reinvent 'truth.' The Trump administration is deleting taxpayer-funded data — information that Americans use to make sense of the world. In its absence, the president can paint the world as he pleases. We don't know the full universe of statistics that has gone missing, but the U.S. DOGE Service's wrecking ball has already left behind a wasteland of 404 pages. All sorts of useful information has disappeared, including data on: tktk Climate, Before Jan. 30 Today EPA | Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool sexual orientation and gender, Census | Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data natural hazards, FEMA | National Risk Index for Natural Hazards crime DOJ | National Law Enforcement Accountability Database and health. ATSDR | Social Vulnerability Index (Data was restored by court order on Feb. 12) Before Jan. 30 Climate, EPA | Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool Today sexual orientation and gender, Census | Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data natural hazards, FEMA | National Risk Index for Natural Hazards crime DOJ | National Law Enforcement Accountability Database and health. ATSDR | Social Vulnerability Index (Data was restored by court order on Feb. 12) Today Climate, EPA | Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool Before Jan. 30 sexual orientation and gender, Census | Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity data natural hazards, FEMA | National Risk Index for Natural Hazards crime DOJ | National Law Enforcement Accountability Database and health. ATSDR | Social Vulnerability Index (Data was restored by court order on Feb. 12) Some of this censorship has been challenged (and at least temporarily reversed) through litigation. Even so, DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has continued its digital book-burning and is now blocking new data collection. For example, in recent weeks, DOGE has canceled contracts for scheduled data gathering at the Social Security Administration and Education Department, among other agencies. Contrary to claims that these contract cancellations save money, in many cases the data have already been collected — but will never see the light of day, even if a new administration changes course. That's because many contracts contain data deletion clauses. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Look ma, no data! Curating reality is an age-old political game. Politicians spin facts, cherry-pick and create 'truth' through repetition. Statistical sleight of hand has long been part of that tool kit, as has burying inconvenient numbers. (In 1994, for instance, U.S. lawmakers blocked federal data collection on 'green' gross domestic product.) But Trump's statistical purges have been faster and more sweeping — picking off not just select factoids but entire troves of public information. 'Statistics provide a mirror to society,' said Andreas Georgiou, a Greek statistician who was criminally prosecuted in his home country after crunching accurate budget statistics during Greece's debt crisis. 'Sometimes these are uncomfortable peeks into reality.' For Trump, the current reality can definitely be uncomfortable. After all, government data include lots of evidence that could frustrate his ambitions. So, he developed a smoke-and-mirrors act: tktkt Inconvenient truths threaten Trump's plans. For example, evidence of climate change has proved troublesome for Trump and his allies. So, he disappears the relevant data ... In February, government websites were ordered to remove statistics related to climate change. ... and uses other tactics to obscure reality. Trump's energy secretary claimed 'there's pluses to global warming' on Feb. 19. This makes it easier for him to do what he wants. Now, no downsides to Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' agenda. Inconvenient truths threaten Trump's plans. For example, evidence of climate change has proved troublesome for Trump and his allies. So, he disappears the relevant data ... In February, government websites were ordered to remove statistics related to climate change. ... and uses other tactics to obscure reality. Trump's energy secretary claimed 'there's pluses to global warming' on Feb. 19. This makes it easier for him to do what he wants. Now, no downsides to Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' agenda. Inconvenient truths threaten Trump's plans. For example, evidence of climate change has proved troublesome for Trump and his allies. So, he disappears the relevant data ... In February, government websites were ordered to remove statistics related to climate change. ... and uses other tactics to obscure reality. Trump's energy secretary claimed 'there's pluses to global warming' on Feb. 19. This makes it easier for him to do what he wants. Now, no downsides to Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' agenda. He has repeated this trick again and again with other frustrating realities. Government data show new forms of bird flu transmission, which undercut his 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda and promise to reduce egg prices. Federal statistics reflect heightened incidents of violence against trans people, whose very existence Trump has denied via an executive order. Databases show that sometimes law enforcement officers abuse their power, misconduct Trump would prefer to cover up. Plus, findings on which educational programs most effectively help special-needs children undercut Trump's plans to cut education funding. Each of these examples has now been blocked or removed from government websites. It's the successful execution of an impulse Trump articulated back in June 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic was raging: 'If we stop testing right now,' he said, 'we'd have very few cases, if any.' Obstructing access to such facts makes it more challenging for experts and regular voters alike to assess how politicians are serving the public. Three cases of legerdemath and other tricks up Trump's sleeve Deleting data isn't the only way to manipulate official statistics. Trump and his allies have also misrepresented or altered data. Here are a few examples: 1. Incorrect data This is a screen capture of the Department of Government Efficiency savings website. Witness DOGE's bogus statistics on its supposed government savings. The administration counts as 'savings' some canceled contracts that had already been paid in full. Some canceled expenses were created out of whole cloth, such as $50 million supposedly spent on sending condoms to Gaza. 2. Misrepresented data This is a photo of Donald Trump standing in front of a large chart titled "Illegal Immigration into the U.S." (Julia Nikhinson/AP) (Julia Nikhinson/AP) (Julia Nikhinson/AP) One of Trump's favorite charts on immigration is riddled with errors. For one, it does not show the number of immigrants entering the United States illegally, as he claims, but the number of people stopped at the U.S. border. Similarly, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was recently asked about how much DOGE funding cuts might reduce economic growth, he suggested that the agency might decide to change how economic growth is calculated so that the usual GDP report strips out government spending altogether. This would be an abrupt change to the standard GDP methodology that has been used around the world for nearly a century, but it would certainly make the DOGE cuts look less painful. 3. Altered data In this photo, Trump holds up a forecast map of hurricane Dorian. He has drawn on it with a sharpie, extended the projected path of the hurricane into Alabama. (Evan Vucci/AP) (Evan Vucci/AP) (Evan Vucci/AP) When data doesn't tell the story Trump wants, he fabricates it. In what became known as 'Sharpiegate,' Trump notoriously altered a map of Hurricane Dorian's path in 2019. A screen capture showing NIH funding data before and after Jan. 30. On the Jan. 31 screen capture, there is no category called "Workforce Diversity and Outreach". NIH Report funding data, Jan. 30 The Workforce Diversity and Outreach budget item disappeared from the data on Jan. 31. NIH Report funding data, Jan. 31 NIH Report funding data, Jan. 30 The Workforce Diversity and Outreach budget item disappeared from the data on Jan. 31. NIH Report funding data, Jan. 31 NIH Report funding data, Jan. 30 The Workforce Diversity and Outreach budget item disappeared from the data on Jan. 31. NIH Report funding data, Jan. 31 Likewise, before Jan. 30, a National Institutes of Health website documenting years of spending data included a category called 'Workforce Diversity and Outreach.' That line item is now gone — even though the money was, indeed, spent. Taking cues from authoritarian illusionists Such actions are straight out of authoritarian leaders' playbooks. Research suggests that less democratic countries have been more likely to inflate their GDP growth rates and manipulate their covid-19 numbers. Statistical manipulation is also more common in countries that shun economic openness and democracy. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin infamously executed statisticians who served up unwelcome numbers. His census chief Olimpiy Kvitkin was arrested and murdered by firing squad after the 1937 census revealed the bloc's population to be millions smaller than Stalin had claimed. Those disseminating the inconvenient data were 'enemies of the people,' state media declared at the time. Recent data-suppression episodes have been less bloody but still disturbing. In 2013, the International Monetary Fund censured Argentina for not providing accurate inflation and GDP data. And as the Financial Times has documented, China began rapidly eliminating inconvenient data series after Xi Jinping became president in 2013. For instance, shortly after China's youth unemployment rate hit an all-time high, the government statistics agency simply stopped publishing it. To be clear, efforts to rewrite reality via statistical manipulation often don't work. If anything, China's data deletions reduced public confidence in the country's economic stability. (No one hides good news, after all.) The Trump team's efforts to suppress nettlesome numbers have similarly eroded trust in U.S. data. Only about one-third of Americans trust that most or all of the statistics Trump cites are 'reliable and accurate.' Meanwhile, missing or untrustworthy data lead to worse decisions: Auto companies, for example, draw on dozens of federally administered datasets when devising new car models, how to price them, where to stock and market them and other key choices. Retailers need detailed information about local demographics, weather and modes of transit when deciding where to locate stores. Doctors require up-to-date statistics about disease spread when diagnosing or treating patients. Families look at school test scores and local crime rates when deciding where to move. Politicians use census data when determining funding levels for important government programs. And of course, voters need good data of all kinds when weighing whether to throw the bums out. Many of us take the existence of economic or public health stats for granted, without even thinking about who maintains them or what happens if they go away. Fortunately, some outside institutions have been saving and archiving endangered federal data. The Wayback Machine, for instance, crawls sites around the internet and has become an invaluable resource for seeing what federal websites used to contain. Other organizations are archiving topic-specific data and research, such as on the environment or reproductive health. These are critical but ultimately insufficient efforts. At best, they can preserve data already published. But they cannot update series already halted or purged, so that Americans can keep tabs on how economic, health, demographic or educational metrics are faring under a new administration. Some private companies may step in to offer their own substitutes (on prices, for example), but private companies still rely on government statistics to calibrate their own numbers. Much of the most critical information about the state of our union can be collected only by the state itself. Americans might be stuck with whatever Trump chooses to share with us, or not. Illustrations by Michelle Kondrich.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Administration Issues Its Pettiest Order Yet—on Email Signatures
In perhaps the Trump administration's pettiest move yet, multiple federal agencies are ordering federal employees to remove any pronouns from their email signatures by end of day Friday, according to ABC News. 'Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5.p.m. ET on Friday,' read a message from from CDC Chief Information Officer Jason Bonander on Friday. 'Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.p.m. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy.' Workers at the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy received similar messages on Thursday, amid the chaos of the D.C. plane crash. 'In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature,' an anonymous employee told ABC. The messages cited Trump's recent anti-DEI executive orders. This is yet another attack on Trump's part, focusing on policing a form of self-expression that has no impact on the ability of federal workers to do the jobs they've sworn to do.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures by end of day
Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News that cited two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office seeking to curb diversity and equity programs in the federal government. "Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5.p.m. ET on Friday," according to one such message sent Friday morning from Jason Bonander, the CDC's Chief Information Officer. "Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.p.m. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy." Federal employees with the Department of Transportation received a similar directive on Thursday, the same day the department was managing the fallout from the D.C. plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. MORE: Trump 2nd term live updates: Several senior FBI officials told to resign or else be fired or demoted Employees were instructed to remove pronouns from everything from government grant applications to email signatures across the department, sources told ABC News. Employees at the Department of Energy who received a similar notice Thursday were told this was to meet requirements in Trump's executive order calling for the removal of DEI "language in Federal discourse, communications and publications." It was not immediately clear whether employees in other federal agencies received similar messages. Spokespeople for the Transportation Department, Energy Department, HHS and CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. The mandate to remove pronouns from email signatures is the latest result of the Trump administration's push to do away with diversity and equity efforts in the federal government. On his first day in office, Trump signed a pair of executive orders calling for an end to what his administration called "radical and wasteful DEI programs" and seeking to restore "biological truth to the federal government." Both orders were referenced in the Friday message to agencies. The memos included instructions for how to edit email signatures. At least one career civil servant met the order with irritation. "In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature," said one recipient, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. A memo issued Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management also directed agencies to "Review agency email systems such as Outlook and turn off features that prompt users for their pronouns." ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report. Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures by end of day originally appeared on
