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Using SimplyMap to Identify Relationships Between Variables
Posted on Nov 11, 2015 by Admin
Inspired by a recent help desk ticket, we wanted to discuss how users may utilize SimplyMap to identify relationships between unique variables. For example, does having a college degree significantly impact the median income of areas? And how does median income effect spending on eating out? Let’s take a look at ZIP Codes within the state of North Carolina.
To quickly analyze a larger area by its smaller geographies, a Location Analysis Report is ideal.
Click on New Tabular Report > Location Analysis:
Choose the state of North Carolina, and navigate to the variables you would like to see compared and analyzed. In this example, we’ll use:
Household Inc, Median
% Education, College, Master's or Doctorate Degree, 2015
% Education, High School
Food away from home (Household Average)
# Households (HHs)
Once you’ve selected your variables, close out the Variables Panel and your report will be created. Be sure to select ZIP Codes from the Analyze Data By option that appears towards the top, shown below.
The last step is to choose a variable (column header) and Sort Descending. For example, if you sort descending for Median HH Income, you will get a ranked list (from high to low) of income by Zip Code. Scan the other columns to get a sense of education levels in these locations, and how much they tend to spend eating out.
Sort Descending Income Results:
Conclusion: The results yield that higher median income areas tends to also have a higher percentage of residents who have at least a college degree. The money spent eating out was somewhat surprising as results did not vary significantly in lower median income areas (although it did go down and especially in the very low income areas).
Note: You may also want to look at # Households or Population Totals in these areas as the averages and percentages would be impacted by those figures.
These results seem to verify a relationship that’s already well known and somewhat intuitive, however, with more than 60,000 variables in SimplyMap you could study relationships between Median Income and Whiskey Drinking, or Pet Ownership, or Yoga Participation, Transportation to work... the possibilities are endless. We’ll be sure to revisit this same topic in the near future!
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