Popular map for exploring environmental health disparities, vulnerabilities in Washington gets an update (from UW News)

Read the full article by Jake Ellison on the UW News website. Start reading below…


“Since it first launched in 2019, Washington state’s Environmental Health Disparities Map has been used to help decisionmakers and government agencies engage with overburdened communities to clean up contamination, improve buildings and electric grids, plant trees and many other projects.

Using a complex matrix of data, this open-access, interactive map ranks Washington’s nearly 1,500 U.S. census tracts by health risks due to environmental degradation and economic and health disparities. It acts as a guide for state agencies and the legislature to improve environmental and economic justice and is included in the state’s Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act.

Now the University of Washington, one of the original partners in the creation of the map, is helping the Department of Health launch a new version, updating the data and methodology for how the map ranks vulnerable areas. The newly updated map went live on July 28.

“The original request for this map tool came from community members who felt that researchers and government programs were looking at either air or water quality, treating them as separate. But communities experience them together, and so they wanted to know if there was a better tool that could communicate the cumulative impact of pollution,” said Esther Min, a UW researcher who led the creation of the original map as well as its updated data and methods.” …

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