About the methods and data
Colorado EnviroScreen helps identify areas in the state facing higher environmental and health burdens by analyzing various data. Below are the five main categories of data:
Environmental exposures: This category includes factors like air pollution, drinking water quality, and noise. Direct exposure to these pollutants can harm human health.
Environmental effects: These indicators reflect indirect risks like living near hazardous waste facilities or polluted rivers. While people might not be directly exposed, these environmental issues can still impact community health and well-being in the long term.
Climate vulnerability: This component examines vulnerabilities related to climate change, such as droughts, extreme heat, floods, and wildfires. These factors measure an area's vulnerability to climate-related hazards.
Sensitive populations (Health indicators): This category focuses on groups more vulnerable to potential health problems. It includes health indicators like asthma hospitalization rates, cancer prevalence, and life expectancy. These measures help identify populations that may be more affected by environmental stressors.
Demographics: Social and economic factors, like income, education, and linguistic isolation, can make some communities more vulnerable to environmental risks. This category highlights these social vulnerabilities, affecting how well communities respond to environmental challenges.
For more detailed information on how we process and calculate the Colorado EnviroScreen score, you can view the complete [Colorado EnviroScreen Technical Documentation]. You can also explore the [Data Processing Code Base] and view all [Input Datasets] used to develop Colorado EnviroScreen 2.0.
Methods
The tool uses percentile ranking to compare data types, such as pollution levels and health data. This method scales the data to rank each indicator relative to others. For example, areas with higher levels of pollution or higher rates of asthma will receive higher percentile scores.
The data used in this tool come from several authoritative sources at the federal and state level. Colorado state agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provide the environmental data through tools like EJScreen and the Community Multiscale Air Quality model. Health and demographic data come from CDPHE, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
Limitations
The tool relies on data from other sources, meaning that some may be a few years old or collected at different times.
The data is available at various geographic levels—some information is for counties, while others are for neighborhoods or smaller areas. This variation can affect how precisely the tool can assess environmental and health risks in specific locations.
It does not include all possible environmental and health topics. Some important factors may be missing because reliable data is not available. Even though the tool includes 35 different indicators, it doesn’t cover every potential risk to public health or the environment.
The tool is designed to point out areas with potential environmental health burdens but does not establish a direct link between those risks and specific health impacts. While the tool identifies areas with multiple vulnerabilities, it does not evaluate how these exposures might combine to affect health outcomes.
It does not include areas with zero residential population, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, in the final scores. The tool analyzes data for entire communities rather than individual homes or buildings, preventing it from assessing personal or household exposure.
The tool also does not define specific thresholds for what makes an environment “safe” or “unsafe,” so it cannot definitively declare any area healthy or unhealthy.