Weighted Combined Index

Importance: Accessibility means that our ECE system offers an adequate supply of nearby, affordable, and high-quality seats. A combined index represents access more holistically than does any component in isolation. It also provides a succinct way of summarizing progress towards the vision of an equitable ECE system that truly meets the needs of our keiki and their families. Based on community values and policy priorities, some aspects of access may be seen as more important or pressing than others. When this is the case, a weighted combination index can be used, where some components contribute more heavily to the weighted combined score. High scores on the weighted combined index are desirable.

How We Got This: The weighted combined index is the weighted average of the standardized scores for the nearby seats, affordability, and quality indexes for each census tract. Weights of 2, 3, and 1 are assigned to the nearby seats, affordability, and quality indexes, respectively. This is based on the assumption that having sufficient seats is the most important aspect of access, affordability is the second priority, and quality (while still important) is a lower priority. Color coding on the maps shows whether the weighted combined index scores are close to average, above/below average, or well above/below average for the state. These groupings are based on the 20th, 40th, 60th, and 80th percentile ranks.