37 factors such as proximity to hazardous-waste sites. On the EJI Explorer, a map-based portal available at eji.cdc.gov, each census tract in the US receives a single score representing cumulative impacts. Revealing the Cumulative Impacts of Pollution On the EJI Explorer, the neighborhoods along the Cross Bronx Expressway—first proposed in the 1940s by Robert Moses over the protests of locals—not only rank high for toxic air, cancer risk, and poverty but also suffer from a high prevalence of chronic health conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, that can worsen with the impacts of air pollution. “Cumulatively,” Levine wrote, “the burden of social, environmental, and underlying health factors in these neighborhoods ranges from the 90th to 99th percentile nationwide, according to the EJI.” This is precisely what the tool was designed for, said Benjamin McKenzie, project coordinator for the EJI. “Part of what we’re trying to do is to raise awareness of how all these factors interconnect,” said McKenzie, an epidemiologist who uses GIS technology “to study the contextual factors causing or contributing to a disease or negative health outcome, including the social determinants of health that make location a key factor in our well-being.” The EJI is one of a growing number of government tools that help communities and policymakers pinpoint environmental, social, and health vulnerabilities at the level of a neighborhood, and sometimes a city block. The tools fit into the Biden administration’s environmental justice agenda, which includes Justice40, an executive order from January 2021 that calls for distributing 40 percent of climate, clean energy, and infrastructure investments to “disadvantaged communities,” as identified by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. The initiative will inform how federal and local agencies spend billions in annual investment from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Informing Local Remediation Decisions Apart from helping implement federal programs, tools such as the EJI can empower action at the local level, too. Policymakers and state agencies can use the EJI to ensure that the proper percentage of funded initiatives are allocated to those most in need. Community members can use the EJI to point to specific burdens, such as high levels of air pollution or toxic sites, that might be affecting people’s health. The tool could also be a boon to public health professionals, helping make it easier to estimate local impacts, especially when personnel and resources are scarce. The EJI is different from other geospatial environmental justice tools in one key aspect: for each census tract, a county subdivision for which the US Census collects data, the EJI shows the combined risk people there face resulting from a wide range of environmental, social, and health burdens. The tool shows a single score, based on a percentile ranking system. “Measuring cumulative impacts, as opposed to just a set of scores, is precisely the thing we bring to the table,” McKenzie said. Equity and Social Justice Rachel Levine, President Biden’s assistant secretary for health, referenced these maps of the South Bronx to urge measures to reduce their pollution burden. Map courtesy of Rachel Levine, US Department of Health and Human Services.
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