EPA Releases Update to EJScreen Tool, Announces Multiple Public Trainings
On October 11, EPA announced an update to EJScreen, the Agency’s publicly available environmental justice screening, and mapping tool. This latest version, EJScreen 2.1, now includes environmental, demographic, and index data for the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. EPA has also added new supplemental indexes that use the same methodology and calculation as the twelve existing EJ Indexes but incorporate a new five-factor supplemental demographic index. The five socioeconomic indicators considered are percent low-income, percent limited English-speaking, percent less than high school education, percent unemployed, and low life expectancy. Additionally, EPA has added threshold maps, at both the state and national levels, which allow users to look across all twelve indexes at once. Threshold maps are available for both the EJ indexes and the supplemental indexes. Finally, EJScreen 2.1 incorporates the newest available 2016 – 2020 American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census. Some of the environmental datasets have also been refreshed.
EPA is holding multiple trainings and office hours for the public to learn about EJScreen 2.1. The Agency intends to provide an overview presentation on EJScreen, a discussion of the new features, a demonstration, and a Q&A session. The office hours will be a chance for the public to talk with EPA EJSCREEN experts about many topics including how to use and apply the tool, technical issues, and any other questions. These webinars are free and open to the public. More information can be found at: https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen/ejscreen-office-hours-training. The next two opportunities are listed below:
Training Meeting: October 19th, 2022 at 12:00 pm EST Meeting Link
Office Hours Meeting: November 2nd, 2022 at 12:00 pm EST Meeting Link
