Federal health agencies unveil national tool to measure health impacts of environmental burdens : new environmental justice index addresses cumulative impacts on health and health equity : press release for immediate release : Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Details

• Personal Author:
  Walensky, Rochelle P.
• Corporate Authors:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
• Description:
  Atlanta) – Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Environmental Justice, announce the release of the Environmental Justice Index (EJI). The EJI builds off existing environmental justice indexes to provide a single environmental justice score for local communities across the United States so that public health officials can identify and map areas most at risk for the health impacts of environmental burden.
  
  It is the first national, geographic-driven tool designed to measure the cumulative impacts of environmental burden through the lenses of human health and health equity. Cumulative impacts are the total harm to human health that occurs from the combination of environmental burden such as pollution and poor environmental conditions, pre-existing health conditions, and social factors.
  
  An example of how pre-existing health conditions can be worsened by environmental burden would be two people with asthma. One person lives in a community with elevated air pollution, and the other person does not. While both people have asthma, the person living in the community with elevated air pollution may be more likely to be hospitalized based on having both factors.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Environmental Health Environmental Justice Environmental Pollution Health Status Prejudice Social Class Social Justice Socioeconomic Factors
• Document Type:
  Press Release
• Name as Subject:
  Environmental Justice Index (EJI)
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5be8199d1f03fe2112bdd12c9153c79161d2b8de3290992af9dbd23aa2c96854
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/120140/cdc_120140_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 103.34 KB ]