Concentrated Disadvantage Index

The concentrated disadvantage index is a composite measure that summarizes a neighborhood's structural deprivation in a single score, combining correlated indicators such as poverty, public-assistance receipt, female-headed households, unemployment, density of children, and racial composition. Popularized by Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls in their 1997 study of Chicago neighborhoods, it is typically built by factor analysis or principal components and serves as the standard control for structural disadvantage in neighborhood-crime research.