MEASURES OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE:
The case of The Boston Indicators Project

SOCIAL INDICATORS TODAY

The concept of indicators is a fairly simple one, though different researchers have variously defined the term over time (see Defining Social Indicators and History of Community Indicators). 

A general and essential definition of a community indicator is as follows: data point or statistical measure that reflects the state of a complex social, economic or physical condition. 

“Social indicators are repeated measurements made of the same phenomena over time…these time-series measurements allow the identification of long-term trends, periodic changes, and fluctuations in rate of change” (Rossi and Gilmartin 1980, p. xiii).