This white paper, funded by the Making Action Possible for Southern Arizona (MAP) Dashboard, identifies and maps child care deserts in the greater Tucson area, and describes the sociodemographic characteristics of these local areas that have limited access to child care. Given the importance of quality in early care and education settings, we additionally identify high quality child care and early education deserts in the region and explore the accessibility of high quality early education programs for preschool-age children, considering cost as well as location. The goal of the project was to assess the gap in early care and education providers and to identify areas that might most benefit from targeted efforts to assure young children have better access to early care and learning opportunities.
Kara Haberstock Tanoue 