Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice

Last year, I was honored to be added to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences committee to analyze the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, or CEJST. We spent a little over one year analyzing CEJST and other screening tools to provide guidance on improving CEJST and constructing environmental justice screening tools that match the lived experience of disadvantaged communities (the term used by the CEJST tool).  As a part of the work, we heard from experts around the world, including community voices. I am proud and honored to be a part of this important work. You can access the report and NASEM brief below. 

Decades of research have shown that disadvantaged communities exist at the intersection of high levels of hazard exposure and poverty. Geospatial environmental justice (EJ) tools, such as the White House Council on Environmental Quality-developed Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), are designed to integrate different kinds of health, social, environmental, and economic data to identify disadvantaged communities and to aid policy and investment decisions that address the pervasive, persistent, and largely unaddressed problems associated with environmental disparities in the United States.

Citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/27317.