Development of an Environmental Quality Index to assess environmental public health disparities – what data are available?

Assessing exposure to environmental insults and human health outcomes is complex. Environmental exposures tend to cluster spatially, with disamenities (e.g., landfills, industrial plants) often located in high-minority and largely poor neighborhoods, while wealthier neighborhoods contain amenities that promote and maintain good health (e.g., parks, health clubs, well-stocked stores). The spatial dependence of environmental conditions is inadequately estimated with single pollutant models. To address this limitation, an environmental quality index (EQI) is under development for all counties in the United States. Four main domains were identified that contribute to environmental quality: air, water, land, and built /social environment. An inventory of possible data sources for each of the four domains was created; data sources were identified using web-based search engines (e.g., google), site-specific search engines (e.g., Federal and State data sites), literature-reported data sources (e.g., Pubmed, Science Direct, Toxnet), and word of mouth (e.g., colleagues, other data owners). Data sources representing each domain were evaluated for spatial and temporal coverage and data quality. Seven, 80, 40 and seven data sources were identified for the air, water, land, and built /social environment domains, respectively. Currently, three air sources, 12 water sources, 25 land sources and seven built environment/social determinants sources are considered for use in the EQI. However, differences in data quality, geographic coverage and data availability exist between the four domains. The EQI will be used to predict environmentally-related health disparities by identifying higher and lower environmentally quality neighborhoods. (This abstract does not necessarily reflect EPA policy.)