The Community Risk Index

Being able to make informed and evidence-based decisions is crucial when planning and targeting interventions, especially those aimed at reaching the most vulnerable populations. For this reason, starting in 2015, with the goal of reaching the most vulnerable children and families with its interventions, UNICEF developed a methodology to assess the risk of communities in Romania. The initial methodology was revised and updated in 2023 through a consultative process involving stakeholders from relevant institutions and civil society. The obtained result, presented and validated with the National Institute of Statistics, is available below for everyone’s access and use.

The current version of the Community Risk Index is calculated using the following seven indicators, which cover aspects related to both the demographic situation of localities in Romania, as well as the socio-economic conditions and availability of and access to services: 

• the type of locality indicator (rural/ urban)
• the child population indicator (percentage of children within total population of the locality)
• the health indicator (number of family doctors per 1,000 inhabitants)
• the education indicator (enrolment rate for kindergarten, primary and secondary education)
• the social protection indicator (beneficiaries of the allowance for family support (ASF) as share within total population of respective county)
• the employment indicator (the share of registered unemployed at the end of the month in the total labour resources)
• the poverty and social exclusion indicator (the percentage of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion)

The weighted sum of the normalized indicators allows for a classification of localities into four different categories, from low risk to high risk, expressed in different colours in the map below.

To fully use the Community Risk Index, navigate through the tabs and filters below: 

! The Community Risk Index provides information only based on the indicators selected. The use of additional and different indicators might result in a different ranking of localities. The indicators were chosen based on availability of open-source local level data in macro-areas selected with stakeholders. Due to the scarcity of data, indicators referring to the state of local infrastructure, to presence of social service workforce professionals or to environmental aspects could not have been addressed. All indicators were updated with the most recent figures available at the National Institute of Statistics, with the consequence of having indicators extracted at different years between 2021 and 2023. Most of the indicators are available at a locality level. However, there are some indicators only available at a county (the ASF indicator) and region level (the AROPE indicator). Weighing process reduced the distortion of results due to processing indicators at different geographical granularity but locality specificity has been lost for those indicators. 

For more information, please consult: 'Use and Limitations of the Community Risk Index'