Social Science

As human activity increasingly dominates Earth, social science remains critical.

Esri is monitoring global activity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and providing resources for response.

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As physical scientists seek to understand how the earth works, social scientists help us to understand how it looks or how we as humans change its appearance and function. It is also in social science that we perfect our ability to form partnerships that effectively work across disciplines, geographies, and organizations. Here, we often use GIS to interactively and iteratively create and evaluate alternative (geo)designs to make better decisions, for example, with land cover for land-use planning, green infrastructure planning, urban planning, and sustainability science.

All In for Sustainable Development

Explore the Open SDG Data Hub

Women and Sustainable Development

This story map showcases how the geospatial perspective can enrich the analysis of gender indicators to follow-up and review progress toward achieving the 2030 Agenda.

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Global gender gap index

The Global Gender Gap Index, produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF), examines the gap between men and women across four fundamental categories.

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Celebrating Women's Rights

Women and girls are more deeply impacted than men and boys by poverty, violence, discrimination, and economic crises. See how the SDGs can help.

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New Racial Equity Initiative

Open data, maps, training solution templates, and stories reveal patterns of inequality and help drive changes toward racial justice.

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A gathering of hands from different races coming together

COVID-19 and the Scientific Community

A global information system has emerged to empower the science community to better understand and model pandemics and inform public health decision making.

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Maps for data-driven public policy

Policy maps clearly show where there are opportunities to inform policy makers and concerned citizens. The new Esri Maps for Public Policy site is dedicated to raising the level of spatial and data literacy used in public policy. We invite you to explore curated content, training, best practices, and datasets that can provide a baseline for your research, analysis, and policy recommendations.

Explore your community Article: Mapping opportunities

Tackling homelessness

Homelessness is a complex issue. To properly address the root causes, organizations need to better understand the impacted communities, as well as the extent of the problem. Many organizations are using the ArcGIS platform to identify at-risk communities, count the homeless population, establish strategic partnerships, share resources, and conduct targeted intervention and outreach.

Read a case study See a story map

Compiling and sharing accurate housing data

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) collaborates with communities across the United States to establish job-generating economic development projects. To meet high demand for information about these projects and make its data easily accessible, HUD works with Esri partner VSolvit to develop and maintain an enterprise GIS.

HUD open data site with tools How GIS helps the government

Health information privacy

MapMasq is an ArcGIS Pro extension for analysts, epidemiologists, scientists, and researchers needing to perform geomasking and/or aggregation procedures that comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. MapMasq helps health organizations to deidentify their protected health information so that they can display or share data safely.

Learn about geomasking