American Human Development Report

The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009, published by Columbia University Press and Social Science Research Council, applies the Human Development approach to the United States and includes a modified American Human Development Index.

Description

The American Human Development Report follows the Human Development concept, which refers to the process of expanding the opportunities of individuals to develop to their full potential, by increasing access to health care, education, income and employment. Similar to the Global Human Development Report, published annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the National Human Development Reports (NHDRs), produced in 135 countries, and 31 regional reports, the American Human Development Report discusses the well-being of individuals and offers a Human Development Index, key development indicators and policy recommendations to stimulate a national policy dialogue among a wide audience. The American Human Development Report is an independent, non-profit initiative funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council with additional funding from the Annenberg Foundation.

American Human Development Index

The American Human Development Index is an indicator of well-being which aims to show the inequalities between congressional districts, states, races and gender. It is a composite of three dimensions of human development: longevity, access to knowledge and standard of living. A modified version of the global HDI, the American HDI uses official U.S. government data on life expectancy to measure longevity, a combination of educational attainment and school enrollment to measure knowledge, and median earnings to measure standard of living.

2008 Report

The 2008 Report marks the first time that human development has been studied and measured in the United States or any other industrialized nation. It introduces the American Human Development Index, a tool which has been proven by the UN Development Reports but which was adapted to measure the relative socio-economic progress of regions and groups of people within the United States. In addition to the vast amounts of data, The Measure of America's [http://www.measureofamerica.org website] also contains interactive maps and a well-o-meter that computes human development scores for individual test-takers.

Rankings

United States average:5.06.

External Links

* [http://www.measureofamerica.org The Measure of America]
* [http://measureofamerica.org/maps/ The Measure of America, Interactive Maps]
* [http://measureofamerica.org/well-o-meter/ The Measure of America, Well-O-Meter]
* [http://measureofamerica.org/blog/2008/06/measure-of-america-on-youtube/ The Measure of America, YouTube Video]
* [http://publications.ssrc.org/ahdr Web Page on Social Science Research Council Website]
* [http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/news_events/announcements/hdr_alum.html SIPA Alumni Pioneer First Ever American Human Development Report, by Zaki Raheem]