The Ranking Variables - Variable report takes the top DAs for your weighted variable(s), then looks for the presence of the other variables you've chosen within these dissemination areas (DAs).
When going through the process of creating the report, you will need to select a Trade Area, one or more weighted variables, a threshold, and additional variables to populate the report. When selecting weighted variables, we recommend no more than 50 at a time.
We recommend that you use 25% as your threshold value. This will take the top 25% of DAs in your trade area based on the presence of your weighted variable(s) and then report on the values for the other variables you chose within those top 25% of DAs. If you use 100% as your threshold, you are watering down your results. Ideally, we only want to include DAs in your trade area with a very high representation of your weighted variable(s) in the analysis. Using 100% as a threshold means that even if a DA has one person that corresponds with your weighted variable(s), that entire DA is going to be included in the report even though that DA has very few people associated with the weighted variable. By using 25% as the threshold, we are ensuring that only DAs with a high proportion of the weighted variable(s) are included when reporting on our other variables.
Important: we do not recommend running a Ranking Variables - Variable report using base variables. The percent composition of these variables is always 100%, thus resulting in a meaningless threshold for the reporting.
If selecting more than one weighted variable, you can slice the report output based on each variable.
Notes:
- % = The percentage in the top 25% of Dissemination Areas (based on your weighted variable(s)) that correspond to the variable
- Base % = The percentage in the Area of Interest that correspond to the variable
Please see Ranking Variables Reports for more information.