Africa COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI)

Surgo Ventures' Africa CCVI ranks 756 regions across 48 African countries on their vulnerability—or their ability to mitigate, treat, and delay transmission of the coronavirus. Vulnerability is assessed based on many factors grouped into seven themes: socioeconomic status, population density, access to transportation and housing; epidemiological factors; health system factors; fragility; and age. The index reflects risk factors for COVID-19, both in terms of clinical outcomes and socioeconomic impact.

The Africa CCVI is the only index to measure vulnerability to COVID-19 within most countries in Africa at this level of detail. The index is modular to reflect the reality that vulnerability is a multi-dimensional construct, and two regions could be vulnerable for very different reasons. This allows stakeholders to customize pandemic responses informed by vulnerability on each dimension. For example, policymakers can identify areas for scaling up COVID-19 testing that are more vulnerable on theme two - population density - or direct community health workers or mobile health units to areas that are vulnerable due to weak health systems infrastructure. The modularity of the Africa CCVI can help governments design lean and precise responses for subnational regions during each phase of the pandemic. 

Data files:

1. Africa_CCVI_subnational_zenodo.csv: Africa CCVI and seven themes' scores for 756 administrative level-1 regions across 48 countries 
2. Africa_CCVI_country_zenodo.csv: Africa CCVI and seven themes scores across 36 countries (12 countries excluded as country-specific data sources were used for them) 
3. DHS_raw_indicators_Zenodo.csv: this CSV contains indicator data for 36 countries, data was primarily sourced from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in addition to other sources (listed in accvi-data-sources.xlsx)
4. non_DHS_raw_indicators_Zenodo.csv: 12 countries that did not have a recent DHS, so we used country-specific surveys, MICS UNICEF, and other sources (listed in accvi-data-sources.xlsx)
5. accvi-data-sources.xlsx: data sources used for ACCVI indicators
6. zenodo_data_dictionary.csv: names and definitions of variables used in data files