Community stress is the experience of chronic stress, violence, and trauma that has serious negative consequences on communities and individuals. It leads to lower social capital and decreased collective efficacy and impacts the psychological development, health, and well-being of individuals.
As part of the City of Oakland’s mission to prevent and reduce violence across Oakland, the Human Services Department (HSD) contracted with Resource Development Associates (RDA) to update the Community Stressors Index, which was last updated in 2014. The Oakland Stressors Index will support data-driven decision making and strategic planning of place-based interventions and allocation of resources (e.g., funding for services, deployment of community resource officers).
The Oakland Stressors Index provides a snapshot of multiple risk factors on community stress. The index captures 21 stressor indicators across a range of domains, including 1) Health and Environment, 2) Housing, 3) Education, 4) Poverty, 5) and Criminal Justice System Involvement. RDA calculated a cumulative index score that summarizes the relative levels of community stress for each census tract across the City of Oakland.