By Andrew Keatts, Kinder Institute for Urban Research for The HuffPost Impact |

For all the resources and attention paid to combating poverty, the whole endeavor suffers from relatively limited data.

A new measure that debuted this fall aims to correct that problem.

Researchers at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy partnered with Salvation Army to develop the Human Needs Index, a real-time measure of poverty that they hope will better inform both policy makers and service providers of the true on-the-ground needs of poor Americans.