Why Grant County Trends?
Our Goal: To Democratize Data
The Grant County Trends project seeks to improve local, public decision making by providing relevant data in an easily navigable website. The data provided on this website is offered as neutral information. We leave it up to the citizens to apply the information according to their individual value judgment.
More specifically, the goals are:
- To collect and share a broad spectrum of information to support informed decision making by individual community members, governmental policy makers, non-governmental organizations, businesses, researchers and the press.
- To benchmark Grant County Trends against Washington State trends or other comparable communities.
- To enable analysis of these trends.
Our Approach
In determining which data sets would be used, the Grant County focus groups followed these guidelines:
- Important to large numbers of the community
- Valid measurements defined by good science and social science
- Understandable to a lay audience
- Available repeatedly over time to allow trend analysis
- Sourced from credible sites
A Process, not a Product
The trends have been developed using state and federal databases. The site continues to evolve, as we add additional trends every year and occasionally delete some. To provide the most relevant data, we need the reactions of site users. Please take advantage of our feedback box to give us your thoughts and help to improve our offering.
Above all, we view Grant County Trends as a tool for all residents of Grant County that will only improve over time.
The role of Eastern Washington University
Website development and maintenance comes from Eastern Washington University's (EWU) Institute (Institute) for Public Policy and Economic Analysis. The Institute is a multi-college unit conducting applied analysis at EWU. Institute, staff and students, gathered the data, wrote the explanations, conducted statistical tests & designed this site. The Institute has created several similar indicator websites, including those for Spokane County, Chelan and Douglas Counties, Benton and Franklin Counties, and Skagit County, among others. Links to other sites can be found on the Other Sites page in this site.
The Institute's Director is Dr. Patrick Jones. Kelley Cullen is the Institute's data analyst. Many students have helped develop and maintain both data and verbal content. Student research interns who were instrumental in creating this project were: Bryan Lockwald, Holly Miller and Emily Wavra. Meredith Hale was the student design intern for this project. Kandyce Moore is the Institute's web developer.
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