Community Design Indicator Processing Package (CDIPP)

This package was developed by Abigail Stamm (NYS) with coding and documentation assistance from Eleni Mora (UT) and Margaret Horton (CO). At present, it includes the traffic fatality and poverty indicators, which both are functional, but require further testing. The package is considered to be in alpha.

How to install

Run the code below in R to install CDIPP directly from GitHub.

# install devtools if you don't already have it
install.packages("devtools")
# install CDIPP from Github with all required packages from CRAN
devtools::install_github("ajstamm/cdccommdes", dependencies = TRUE)

If running the code above doesn't work, you can also install CDIPP manually. Download the most recently compiled version of CDIPP, then download and follow instructions on how to install CDIPP, including a list of required R packages on CRAN.

What works

• All FARS and poverty functions. Exported. To access, run:
  • process_fars(): calculate vehicle-related deaths by tract
  • process_poverty(): calculate poverty by tract
• The following intersection density functions (not yet exported as the indicator is incomplete):
  • read_land_areas(): read in protected land
  • read_water_areas(): read in all water bodies
  • read_streets()
• The following VMT functions (not yet exported as the indicator is incomplete):
  • read_tracts(): read census tracts
  • prep_arc_aadt(): read ArcGIS Online data
• The following generic functions. Exported, but buggy. To access, run:
  • save_generic(): save your file as CSV, shapefile, Rds, or XML (XML doesn't work currently)

What needs to be updated

• Look into using the package tidycensus to streamline poverty indicators over time.
• Look into using the package osmdata to read OpenStreetMap?
  • Reasons Abby doesn't think this will work:
    1. This package uses OSM's API to pull all objects that overlap a literal box around a user-defined geography. As a result, when I pull data for, say, Staten Island in NYC, I also get objects in NJ close to Staten Island. On the plus side, it's easy to deduplicate if you pull two neighboring areas, since the package pulls objects that intersect the box without clipping them to fit inside the box first, but it pulls a lot of unnecessary data.
    2. Pulling all of NYS at once timed out, so in my test functions, I used the tigris function to create loops to pull data county by county. Even with pauses within the loops to slow down pings to the API, I have yet to successfully pull street data for Suffolk County, NY using this package. (Weirdly, NYC was fine county by county.)
  • Abby recommends skipping this package for now.
• in save_generic() the XML portion broke and will give an error - it needs to be investigated
• convert count_intersection.R to sf - done?
• add Roxygen for some functions (note which ones)
• add examples for key (exported) functions (process_fars, process_poverty, save_generic so far)
• add option for using FARS API in read_fars (and, correspondingly, process_fars)
• add and/or revise vignettes (only traffic safety and poverty done, but they're bare-bones)
• flesh out the package help page (if you type ?cdccommdes)
• Package future:
  • Who will host it? looking into CDC
  • Who will maintain it? currently ad hoc (Margaret, Abby, Rick, Eric, Aaron, with Lyle as support)

Acknowledgements

The development of this package would not have been possible without the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Environmental Health Tracking Program (NEPHT), especially the Community Design Content Workgroup. Its content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC.