9-27 FB Indicators Northwest

 Living in a tiny rural community in Idaho? You aren’t going unnoticed…at least in cyberspace. I’m David Sparks with the story. The new Indicators Northwest website provides the most up-to-date social and economic data for states, counties, Native American reservations, and tribes for Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

 The University of Idaho, with support from the Community Action Partnership headquartered in Lewiston, developed the new website. It provides a publicly available tool to help citizens and officials better understand community trends and needs in the Northwest.

 The user-friendly website is designed for people who don’t have the time or experience to search multiple data sources.  The University of Idaho updates Indicators Northwest regularly with new data from a wide variety of federal and state agencies.  Users can get a quick summary of major trends, print a profile of characteristics for their county, view graphs, and download data.  Indicators include unemployment and wage rates, population by age, poverty rates and health insurance coverage, among others. Here’s U. of I spokesman Bill Loftus: This website pulls together the information public officials and citizens alike need to understand how their communities are doing. It has basic census information and information to calculate the poverty rate in these communities and it’s really a way for authorities to figure out where they should focus their efforts and, in turn, where to find the help to do so. Bill says that even the FBI is involved in the project.