Methodology
The Just Progress tool combines demographic, environmental, and socio-economic data to generate a cumulative index score, referred to as the Just Progress Index. The tool currently utilizes national, publically-available data from the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and the EPA’s EJScreen tool.
The various inputs into the Just Progress Index are averaged into 2 categories: Pollution Burden and Demographics.
Pollution Burden: health risks arising from proximity and potential exposures to pollution and other adverse environmental conditions
Demographics: sensitive populations and socioeconomic factors that make a community more vulnerable
Pollution Burden average x Demographics average = Just Progress Index
Datasets used in cumulative score
The datasets come from a variety of sources and were selected after considering relevance, availability, recency and quality.
Poverty
- Data resolution: Census block group
- Data source: U.S. Census Bureau
- Data date range: 5-year estimates, 2015-2019
Education (less than high school)
- Data resolution: Census block group
- Data source: U.S. Census Bureau
- Data date range: 5-year estimates, 2015-2019
Linguistic isolation
- Data resolution: Census block group
- Data source: U.S. Census Bureau
- Data date range: 5-year estimates, 2015-2019
Unemployment rate
- Data resolution: Census block group
- Data source: U.S. Census Bureau
- Data date range: 5-year estimates, 2015-2019
Housing burden
- Data resolution: Census block group
- Data source: U.S. Census Bureau
- Data date range: 5-year estimates, 2015-2019