I'll be writing similar entries for The Bee's new investigations blog, The Public Eye. In addition to the data-centered items seen here, you'll find a variety of postings by Bee reporters that support the "watchdog" mission of the paper. The purpose of The Public Eye is to "break news, as well as to follow up on investigations with tidbits, news breaks and behind-the-scenes descriptions of our news gathering process".

See you on the other blog.

Today the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development release a huge compendium of fresh data covering a wide range of topics, including population, econonics, education, environment, government, technology, and more. The OECD Factbook contains over 100 indicators that compare conditions in most of the world's nations. The 2010 edition is available free in three formats: as a web site, an online database or as an iPhone application. You can also order a print copy.

The stats in both the web site and database versions are easy to browse and manipulate. You drill down through a hierarchy of topics to specific tables. For example, in the "Population and Migration" section of the web version, there is an interesting table comparing the unemployment status of native-born and foreign-born workers in various countries. In general, immigrants have a tougher time finding work, but underlying factors (such as gender, age, education) vary from country to country. 

This new report contains raw stats for cities over 100,000 population. Sacramento exceeded the national trend, showing a 10.6 percent decrease in violent crime and 6.6 percent drop in property crime. In Elk Grove, violent crime went down 7.9 percent; property crime 4.1 percent. In Roseville, violent crime went down 0.6 percent; property crime 5.6 percent. (The number of crimes in these two cities are relatively small, so percent changes have to taken with a grain of salt.)

You can see how Sacramento's air quality compares to other metropolitan areas in the 2010 State of the Air report, recently published by the American Lung Association. The greater Sacramento region, according to the study, is among the most polluted areas in the country. It ranks fifth in ozone pollution and sixth in short-term (24-hour) particle pollution. (Los Angeles and Bakersfield are first, respectively.)

The full text of the report (available free online) contains county-level statistics on pollution levels and at-risk groups. Sacramento County (p. 53) gets a grade "F" for both the number of high ozone and high particle pollution days. The county is also home to a sizable population of people suffering from chronic health problems (diabetes, lung and cardio-vascular dieseases) that make them especially vunerable to airborne pollutants (p. 54).

This new resource is easy to search. Just type in the ancestor's name to call up indexed data derived from birth certificates, marriage licenses, census lists and other documents. You can also refine searches by birth, death or marriage year; place of birth, death or marriage; father's or mother's name. In some cases, a digital image of the actual document will accompany the indexing.

FamilySearch intends to index all of the 3.5 billion records currently preserved on microfilm in its Salt Lake City vault. The effort will take about ten years.

Part of digital literacy is knowing how to judge the accuracy, credibility and usefulness of web sites. With hundreds of thousands of sources on coutless topics, it's pretty daunting for the average person (and the professional) to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Here's one bit of help: The American Library Association has been compiling an annual list of The Best Free Reference Web Sites, a really good bibliography of material that is authoritative, useful and interesting. The list covers a broad range of topics: science, health, media, the arts, law, government, education, etc. The 2010 listing has just been released. And there's also a combined index of previous annual lists going back to 1999.

In 2008, 63.6 percent of the voting age population voted. That's not much different than the participation in November 2004, but higher than in earlier presidential elections. (The national registration rate fell slightly from 2004 to 2008, 72.1 to 71.0 percent.) Breaking out the data, non-Hispanic Whites and African Americans showed the highest voting rates (66.1 and 64.7 percent). Women voted at a higher rate than men (72.8 to 69.1 percent). People aged 65-74 beat all other age groups (72.4 percent). Married adults voted more than the non-married categories (69.9 percent). Those with advanced college degrees vote at the highest rate of 82.7 percent.

Looked at geographically, we see California voting at almost the national rate (63.4 percent). Minnesota had the highest (75.0 percent) and Hawaii the lowest (51.0 percent).

For each state, CIR's map directs you to financial data, official audits and a reporter's concise analysis of problems in the management and accounting of grant money. California, for example, links to a detailed spreadsheet listing specific projects by county and agency. Sacramento City and County have received more than $120 million for a variety of purchases, including radios, bomb vehicles, respirators and hazmat equipment. Also linked to the California page are two state and one federal auditor reports. And there's CIR reporter G.W. Schultz's summary of the most egregious misuse and mismanagement of funds in the state.

Finding specific information in the 172-page report is daunting, but fortunately the Brookings web site allows readers to visualize and browse the stats easily using an interactive map and database. With the national map, you can quickly flip from indicator to indicator and compare the metro areas with color-coded circles. You can also call up the entire dataset for a particular MSA, for example, "Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville," the 25th largest in the United States. These MSA figures are broken down by the region as a whole, by its principal city and by its suburbs.

As bad as things are now for the health system, they'll probably get worse as Baby Boomers age into retirement. Just how much will Medicare grow in California, currently home to the largest number of beneficiaries -- 4.5 million enrollees? A new report estimates that the state's elderly ppopulation (65+) will more than double by the year 2030. The RAND study, Medicare Facts and Figures Chartbook, is intended to provide health providers, policymakers and advocates with essential data on California's Medicare recipients. Major findings:

Medicare reimbursement for care delivered to California beneficiaries is higher than the national average -- about $600 more per beneficiary in 2006.

In 2004 and 2005, total annual medical payments per Medicare beneficiary in California averaged $11,326, of which $1,330 (11 percent) came out of the beneficiaries' own pockets.

A large percentage of Medicare beneficiaries suffer from multiple chronic illnesses. In 2005, 79 percent reported having two or more chronic conditions, and 37 percent reported four or more.

A clickable map of Assembly and Senate districts takes you directly to your particular representatives' profiles. Take, for example, Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). His donations total $2,718,095. The top interest group giving him money is "attorneys and law firms" ($177,870) followed by "construction unions" ($148,950). His top organizational donor is AT&T ($21,700), followed by the California State Council of Service Employees ($20,600).

By far the most generous of the interest groups are the construction unions which gave a total of $4,668,606. They are followed by attorneys and law firms ($2,839,023) and state and local government employee unions ($2,683,162). All the interest groups are organized in an easy-to-browse hierarchy.

The ESI "calculates a score from 1 to 100 based on unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates." A state or county which scores above 11 is generally considered economically distressed. Nevada leads the states with an index of 21.3. It's followed by Michigan (18.15), California (17.21), Florida (16.14) and Illinois (15.13). California's score rose 2.46 points since March 2009 and 7.23 points since October 2007.

Take a look at AP's helpful interactive map which displays ESI data for every county in the nation. It's color-coded by score-range as well as monthly and annual change in score. Sacramento County's current stress index is 18.63, up 2.05 points from a year ago and 9.2 point since October 2007. That's driven mostly by high unemployment.

City / County Population Estimates -- January 1, 2009 and 2010 (shows 2009 population with provisional 2010 estimate, plus percent change).

Population Estimates for Cities, Counties and the State, 2001-2010, with 2000 Benchmark (shows annual estimates of population, plus the figures from the 2000 federal census).

Population and Housing Estimates for Cities, Counties and the State, 2001-2010, with 2000 Benchmark (shows annual estimates of households and housing units, plus breakdowns of housing by type: SFRs, apartments, mobile, etc.).

January 2010 City Population Ranked by Size, Numeric, and Percent Change (shows cities ranked by numeric and percent change between 2009-2010 and 2000-2010).

Some highlights: Between 2009-2010 California grew 1.0 percent to 38,648,090. Sacramento County grew 0.9 percent to 1,445,327. Sacramento City grew 1.0 percent to 486,489. The fastest growing county is the state is Sutter, 2.7 percent. The fast growing city is Colfax, 5.67 percent.

Take for example health insurance. States are responsible for most of the regulation of carriers, so it's not surprising that a lot of campaign funding comes from insurers. According to the National Institute, four of the largest companies (Wellpoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana) distributed $8.7 million in 42 states from 2005-2008. So far in 2010, the health industry in general gave a total of $16.1 million dollars to state candidates, political committees and ballot measures (53.9 percent to Democrats, 43.8 percent to Republicans). In California this year, health businesses have donated a total of $4.2 million (60.5 percent to Democrats, 33.3 percent to Republicans).