About this index & how it's been checked
The Aging Vulnerability Index (AVI) is this platform's own construction, modeled on the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index methodology but not a CDC product and not independently validated. It combines Census ACS data on the population 65 and older — demographic aging pressure, economic precarity, health/disability/isolation, and housing/transportation burden — into a single percentile ranking of U.S. counties. The underlying inputs are official Census data; the index construction and weighting are this platform's own.
Reference-county check
A face-validity check against real counties with well-documented age profiles — the same method used to calibrate this platform's seasonal-community threshold. Higher percentile = more aging-vulnerable.
- ✓ Sumter County, FL — 79.8th percentile (expected HIGH, The Villages — often cited as the oldest-median-age U.S. county)
- ✓ Charlotte County, FL — 90.8th percentile (expected HIGH, Retirement destination)
- ✓ Citrus County, FL — 88.1th percentile (expected HIGH, Retirement destination)
- ✓ Highlands County, FL — 95.9th percentile (expected HIGH, Retirement destination)
- ✓ Brazos County, TX — 17.0th percentile (expected LOW, Texas A&M)
- ✓ Story County, IA — 8.9th percentile (expected LOW, Iowa State)
- ✓ Whitman County, WA — 10.3th percentile (expected LOW, Washington State University)
- ✓ Tompkins County, NY — 7.6th percentile (expected LOW, Cornell)
Highest / lowest AVI by county population
Under 50,000
Highest
- Catron County, NM — 100.0th pctile (pop. 3,743)
- De Baca County, NM — 99.9th pctile (pop. 1,576)
- Ozark County, MO — 99.8th pctile (pop. 8,873)
- Scott County, VA — 99.6th pctile (pop. 21,479)
- Harney County, OR — 99.6th pctile (pop. 7,499)
Lowest
- Martin County, TX — 0.0th pctile (pop. 5,218)
- Jim Hogg County, TX — 0.1th pctile (pop. 4,727)
- Haskell County, KS — 0.1th pctile (pop. 3,641)
- Hanson County, SD — 0.1th pctile (pop. 3,472)
- Trousdale County, TN — 0.2th pctile (pop. 11,957)
50,000-99,999
Highest
- Nye County, NV — 96.7th pctile (pop. 54,344)
- Gila County, AZ — 96.7th pctile (pop. 53,795)
- Raleigh County, WV — 96.0th pctile (pop. 73,195)
- Wilkes County, NC — 95.6th pctile (pop. 65,935)
- Pittsylvania County, VA — 94.0th pctile (pop. 59,856)
Lowest
- Oldham County, KY — 0.0th pctile (pop. 69,257)
- Eagle County, CO — 0.2th pctile (pop. 55,135)
- Lincoln County, SD — 0.5th pctile (pop. 70,638)
- Johnson County, MO — 0.9th pctile (pop. 54,732)
- Lafayette County, MS — 1.3th pctile (pop. 58,327)
100,000-299,999
Highest
- Highlands County, FL — 95.9th pctile (pop. 105,702)
- Mohave County, AZ — 93.9th pctile (pop. 220,517)
- Douglas County, OR — 93.0th pctile (pop. 112,072)
- Charlotte County, FL — 90.8th pctile (pop. 201,064)
- Indian River County, FL — 90.3th pctile (pop. 166,936)
Lowest
- Union County, NC — 0.8th pctile (pop. 250,958)
- Scott County, MN — 1.1th pctile (pop. 154,557)
- Williamson County, TN — 1.2th pctile (pop. 260,351)
- St. Mary's County, MD — 1.3th pctile (pop. 115,126)
- Dallas County, IA — 1.5th pctile (pop. 107,968)
300,000 and higher
Highest
- Pinellas County, FL — 90.1th pctile (pop. 963,481)
- Collier County, FL — 89.9th pctile (pop. 398,291)
- Marion County, FL — 87.1th pctile (pop. 400,078)
- Lee County, FL — 86.1th pctile (pop. 817,666)
- Palm Beach County, FL — 85.0th pctile (pop. 1,533,806)
Lowest
- Hamilton County, IN — 0.6th pctile (pop. 365,056)
- Prince William Count, VA — 2.1th pctile (pop. 488,880)
- Davis County, UT — 2.1th pctile (pop. 370,924)
- Douglas County, CO — 2.2th pctile (pop. 377,150)
- Loudoun County, VA — 2.4th pctile (pop. 432,998)
Salem city — Aging Vulnerability Index by county subdivision
Candidate index, not validated against ground truth — 2020–2024 ACS 5-year
Salem city — Aging Vulnerability Index by county subdivision
Where this is
Shading: Aging Vulnerability Index
Higher (56)
Each unit is shaded by its Aging Vulnerability Index value and grouped into equal-count bands (quantiles) against the other units shown — lighter = lower, darker = higher. It ranks position among the units in view; it does not grade places, and the ranges shift with which units are shown.
The map is bounded to this parent geography — it shows the selected unit among its own siblings only, the same depth rule the drill-down uses. Shading ranks position on the measure among the units shown; it does not grade places.
Click a county subdivision to see its overall percentile and theme scores.
Median county subdivision: 56th percentile (among all U.S. county subdivisions).
These county subdivisions span the 56th percentile to the 56th percentile. The width of that range is the internal disparity.
AVI ranks each county subdivision's position relative to a comparison set; it is not averaged into one number for the area, because percentiles do not average meaningfully. The distribution — median, range, and shape below — is the summary.
Salem — 56th percentile — Near the median 2 of 12 flagged
Driven by Housing & Transportation, 65+ ‡ (well above); near the median on Demographic Aging Pressure, Economic Precarity, 65+ and Social Isolation; below the median on Health, Disability & Isolation ‡.
‡ theme includes at least one flagged input.
AVI = a candidate Aging Vulnerability Index, computed by this platform from American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates, following the same method shape (percentile rank -> theme sum -> re-rank -> overall) as the CDC/ATSDR SVI this platform also recomputes — but AVI itself has no published ground truth to validate against. It is a first-cut, directional design. Percentiles rank each county against all U.S. county subdivisions.
Several of AVI's 12 input signals carry a documented high margin of error at this grain (most notably lack of health insurance, 65+) and are kept in the index with a flag rather than dropped, to preserve variable coverage. A county's flag count (shown per-county above) is a direct measure of how much its rank should be read as directional rather than precise.