The exposure dimension involves the measures of isolation, interaction and correlation. These measures are discussed further below. Also see Table 1 for a summary of these measures. Non-Hispanic Whites are the only comparison group used to compute these measures of segregation, even in metropolitan areas where they are not the majority. Measures of Evenness Evenness measures of segregation compare the spatial distributions of different groups.
Segregation is smallest when majority and minority populations have the same spatial distribution.
The most widely used measure of evenness is dissimilarity. A second measure of evenness is the Gini coefficient. Like the index of dissimilarity, it can be derived from the Lorenz curve, and varies between 0.0 and 1.0, with 1.0 indicating maximum segregation. When the shape parameter is 0.5, such areas contribute equally. For values of the parameter between 0.0 and 1.0, the Atkinson index also varies in that range, with 1.0 indicating maximum segregation.