The Wisconsin Risk and Reach Project

The Wisconsin Risk and Reach Project provides information about community risk factors and the reach of publicly funded programs designed to support children and families. The information and tools available here can be used to assess potential gaps in services by county and across the state.

The information contained here is intended to inform state government, local advocacy agencies, and communities about areas of need for program expansion and investment. The aim is to promote constructive dialogue, better understanding, data-informed decisions, and collaborations that improve the well-being of Wisconsin children.

Risk Factors

For this analysis risks to a child's healthy development include ones related to economic insecurity, health and safety concerns, and poor formal educational outcomes. It considers county-level indicators of risk in each of the three domains and highlights areas that may benefit from additional support. The data notes provide detail about the sources and tabulation methods for each risk measure.

Program Reach

Apart from 4K, which is free and available when offered by a school district, programs included here each have distinct eligibility criteria. For the purposes of this analysis, most of the reach measures reflect the percentage of eligible children participating in each program. In cases where exact participation and/or eligible population counts were not readily available, the data team used estimates or proxies for those counts. As with risk measures, the data notes provide detail about sources and tabulation methods for each reach measure.

Limitations

The maps, charts, and tables presented here depict the risks to healthy child development and the reach of programs. However, as with all data, they are imperfect representations of people's lived experiences. Ultimately, child outcomes are shaped by a complex array of forces and the risk factors captured here reflect just a handful of the factors that can impact child outcomes.

Program reach measures rely on administrative data collected and maintained by federal, state and county-led programs as a regular part of their operations. Although there are many advantages to using administrative data, including its ready availability and reliability, the data can also fall short of telling a complete story. For instance, the estimation of reach does not account for variation in program intensity (e.g., a Head Start slot that provides a few hours of services per week versus one that provides 40 are treated the same). It does not measure a program's quality, the direct experiences of parents and children or how well it is meeting the needs of a community. As mentioned previously, actual program participation numbers are not available in some cases. Instead, the research team relied upon the best available estimates. Moreover, this assessment does not account for local community and faith-based initiatives that help to support children and families, nor the informal networks of family and friends that help create resilience, even in places with significant needs.

Despite the limitations, this assessment can provide a jumping off place for more nuanced conversations by community groups, program leaders, and advocates, as well as state, county, and local decision-makers.

These measures of risk and reach are meant to be useful to communities and local leaders at the county level. The longer-term aim is to supply some of these measures at more detailed geographic scales such as legislative districts, municipalities, and census tracts. However, it can be challenging to identify reliable data at these scales and produce summaries that do not compromise the program participants' confidentiality. Likewise, program participation data disaggregated by race and ethnicity is either unreliable, subject to privacy considerations due to small sample size, or non-existent for most Wisconsin counties.

Finally, programs and services in some cases are under exclusive jurisdiction of a tribe; those data may not be reflected in county counts due to tribal sovereignty. Data notes provide more detail about specific reach indicators.

This Edition

This is the second edition of Wisconsin Risk and Reach. The first iteration was based on data prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the impact of the pandemic was nowhere reflected in the data. Years prior to the pandemic are reflected in some multi-year measures here, but most of the measures reflect more current conditions. Based on feedback from stakeholders, future editions will aim to overcome some remaining limitations and expand the tool's utility.

Funding and Research Partnership

This project was made possible through the federal Preschool Development Grant awarded to Wisconsin to support a cohesive and comprehensive early care and education system in our state for children birth to five. The Wisconsin's Department of Children and Families (DCF) administers the grant, in partnership with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Department of Health Services (DHS), with research partnership from the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.