Science Inventory

Environmental Quality Index - Technical Report (2006-2010) (Final, 2020)

Contact

http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_comments.cfm

Citation:

U.S. EPA. Environmental Quality Index - Technical Report (2006-2010) (Final, 2020). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-20/367, 2020.

Impact/Purpose:

A better estimate of overall environmental quality is needed to improve our understanding of the relationship between environmental conditions and human health. Described in this report is the effort to construct an environmental quality index (EQI) representing multiple domains of the ambient environment, including air, water, land, built and sociodemographic for all counties in the U.S. for the time period including the years 2006-2010. The EQI was created for two main purposes:

  • as an indicator of ambient conditions/exposure in environmental health modeling and
  • as a covariate to adjust for ambient conditions in environmental models.
However, with the public release of the EQI and variables that constructed the EQI, other uses may emerge. The methods applied provide a reproducible approach that capitalizes almost exclusively on publicly available data sources. This report is written for audiences interested in the construction of the EQI and is technical in nature. The created variables, EQI, domain-specific indices, and EQI stratified by rural-urban continuum codes (RUCCs) are available publicly at the EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway. Also, an interactive map of the EQI is available at EPA’s GeoPlatform.

Description:

The assessment of environmental exposures for human health is an advancing field, characterized by multiple new methodologic and analytic approaches. The difficulties in examining the many broad-based factors impacting human health outcomes are increasingly recognized, with exposures to harmful and benign substances occurring simultaneously. Yet, it is unlikely that any single exposure alone is responsible for good or poor health. Each exposure estimated in epidemiologic models accounts for a relatively small proportion of observed variance in health outcomes. Clearly, it is not just good-quality air or high income that produces health but, rather, the combination of these and other various exposures or health-related variables. A scale or index produced through data reduction approaches could be used to help improve statistical efficiency, while simultaneously summarizing information on the wider environment to which humans are exposed. The resulting scale or index, hereafter referred to as the “Environmental Quality Index” or “EQI”, could be used to identify geographies characterized by varying quantities of environmental quality.

Record Details:

Record Type:DOCUMENT( PUBLISHED REPORT/ REPORT)
Product Published Date:09/01/2014
Record Last Revised:02/18/2021
OMB Category:Other
Record ID: 350545