Insert Cover 
 

 

 

SCIENCE TOOLS DEVELOPMENT 

 

 

Implementation Plan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 2011 

Led by 

Office of Research and Development

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Washington, D.C. 20460 

 
PLAN EJ 2014 AT A GLANCE

Plan EJ 2014 is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s 

roadmap to integrating environmental justice into its programs and policies. 

The year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 

12898 on environmental justice. Plan EJ 2014 seeks to:

 Protect the environment and health in overburdened communities.

 Empower communities to take action to improve their health and 

environment.

 Establish partnerships with local, state, tribal, and federal 

governments and organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable 

communities.

As the EPA’s overarching environmental justice strategy, Plan EJ 2014 has 

three major sections: Cross-Agency Focus Areas, Tools Development 

Areas, and Program Initiatives. 

The Cross-Agency Focus Areas are:

 Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking.

 Considering Environmental Justice in Permitting.

 Advancing Environmental Justice through Compliance and 

Enforcement.

 Supporting Community-Based Action Programs.

 Fostering Administration-Wide Action on Environmental Justice.

The Tools Development Areas are: 

 Science.

 Law.

 Information.

 Resources.
Table of Contents 

1.0 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................2

1.1 Goals ...............................................................................................................3

1.2 Strategies ........................................................................................................4

1.3 Discussion .......................................................................................................4

1.4 Organizational Structure ................................................................................7

2.0 IMPLEMENTATION .......................................................................................8

2.1 Activities ..........................................................................................................8

2.2 Community Engagement and Stakeholder Partnership Plan ......................28

3.0 DELIVERABLES ............................................................................................29

4.0 REPORTING................................................................................................. 34

APPENDIX ...............................................................................................................35

Appendix A: References ......................................................................................35

Appendix B: Acronyms ........................................................................................36

Appendix C: Science Recommendations from the March 2010 

Symposium .........................................................................................................38
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 3

1.0 INTRODUCTION 

Under Plan EJ 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has 

committed to building a strong scientific foundation for supporting 

environmental justice and conducting disproportionate impact analysis, 

particularly methods to appropriately characterize and assess cumulative 

impacts. These efforts will help to ensure that EPA brings the best 

science to decision making around environmental justice issues. 

This Science Tools Development Implementation Plan discusses 

overarching goals, strategies, and activities, including a science and 

research agenda for the Agency. The science and research activities 

described in this plan build upon discussions and recommendations from 

“Strengthening Environmental Justice and Decision-Making: A Symposium 

on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts”

(March 17-19, 2010) and the workshop on “Analytical Methods for 

Assessing the Environmental Justice Implications of Environmental 

Regulations” (June 9-10, 2010). The March 2010 Symposium was the 

principal event for the Agency to identify science needs for environmental 

justice and stimulate ideas for innovative research to meet those needs. 

1.1 Goals 

Our goal is that, within five years, EPA will substantially support and 

conduct research that employs participatory principles and integrates 

social and physical sciences aimed at understanding and illuminating 

solutions to environmental and health inequalities among overburdened 

populations and communities1 in the United States. This goal supports 

our vision that all Agency decisions will make use of the information, 

data, and analytic tools produced. Our goal has two specific elements: 

1. Improve the scientific basis for environmental regulatory and policy 

decisions in order to ensure that everyone enjoys the same degree of 

protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access 

to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in 

which to live, learn, and work. 

2. In order to increase the relevance of science to policy making, 

transform how EPA formulates, designs, prioritizes, conducts, and 

fosters more citizen participatory, inclusive, co-production of 

knowledge, and collaborative processes within the scientific research 

enterprise. 

 

1

In Plan EJ 2014, EPA uses the term “overburdened” to describe the minority, low-income, tribal, and 

indigenous populations or communities in the United States that potentially experience 

disproportionate environmental harms and risks as a result of greater vulnerability to environmental 

hazards. This increased vulnerability may be attributable to an accumulation of both negative and 

lack of positive environmental, health, economic, or social conditions within these populations or 

communities. 

Goals At-A-Glance

To substantially support 

and conduct research that 

employs participatory 

principles and integrates 

social and physical 

sciences aimed at 

understanding and 

illuminating solutions to 

environmental and health 

inequalities among 

overburdened populations 

and communities in the 

United States. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 4

1.2 Strategies 

We have five major strategies to achieve our goals. 

1. Apply integrated transdisciplinary and community-based participatory 

research approaches with a focus on addressing multi-media, 

cumulative impacts and equity in environmental health and 

environmental conditions. 

2. Create mechanisms to incorporate perspectives from communitybased organizations and community leaders into EPA’s research 

agendas and engage in collaborative partnerships with them on 

science and research to address environmental justice. 

3. Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues of 

research, policy, and action to address health disparities. 

4. Build and strengthen the technical capacity of Agency scientists on 

conducting research in partnership with impacted communities and 

translating research results to inform change. 

5. Build and strengthen technical capacity of community-based 

organizations and community environmental justice and health 

leaders to address environmental health disparities and 

environmental sustainability issues. 

1.3 Discussion 

Multiple aspects of the physical environment in which we live, learn, 

work, and play can put certain groups of people “at higher risk.” Also, 

individuals and groups may experience disadvantages related to their 

gender, lifestage, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, disability, 

education, geographic location, or other characteristics historically linked 

to discrimination or exclusion. This complex interaction between the 

physical environment and other conditions of social disadvantage 

contributes to known social disparities in environmental health 

outcomes. 

Since 1994, as stated in the Executive Order 12898 (EO 12898), it has 

been incumbent upon all federal agencies including EPA to identify and 

address disproportionately high and adverse human health or 

environmental effects on minority and low-income populations that may 

result from their programs, policies, and activities. The concept of 

disproportionate environmental health impacts and burdens refers to the 

finding that some populations systematically experience higher levels of 

risks and impacts than the general population. (Brulle and Pellow 2006) 

This perspective recognizes that multiple factors, including social, 

psychosocial, economic, physical, chemical, and biological determinants 

may contribute to disproportionately high and adverse human health or 

environmental impacts. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 5

The importance of science in environmental decision making at EPA 

emphasizes the need for data and information that is sound and 

defensible, reproducible, and informative. For environmental justice 

stakeholders, it is even more important that the science underlying EPA’s 

decisions appropriately accounts for the multiple exposures to chemical 

stressors and cumulative impacts from multiple exposures that they 

experience in their communities. Further, the social and real world 

context in which exposures to environmental contaminants occur also 

needs to be explicitly considered and reflected in EPA’s scientific research 

and analysis as emerging evidence demonstrates that social context may 

enhance the toxic effects of both single and multiple environmental 

contaminant exposures. Such considerations require new models for 

assessing the toxicity of environmental hazards, advanced methods for 

analyzing complex interactions between multiple stressors, and enhanced 

access to community-level wisdom and resources. 

These emerging needs indicate that new ways of conducting scientific 

inquiry to inform environmental decision are needed at EPA. Such 

expansion and advancement of EPA’s scientific agenda, methods, models, 

research inquiry approaches, and information resources is necessary for 

the Agency to adequately address environmental justice stakeholder’s 

concerns about environment, sustainability, and health inequalities. 

These advancements take on additional importance when viewed in the 

context of the Agency’s mandate to achieve environmental justice as 

required by EO 12898, and its ability to effectively contribute towards 

Healthy People 2020’s overarching goals to achieve health equity, 

eliminate health disparities, improve the health of all groups, and create 

social and physical environments that promote good health for all.2

 

Conversely, health and environment status can influence, for example, 

the social and institutional arrangements, which can lead to both negative 

and positive outcomes cumulatively impacting the health of a community. 

The cumulative impact has greater and farther-reaching consequences 

than any one factor or event alone; this is particularly evident among 

vulnerable low-income and underserved populations. In order to 

determine the positive and negative health and environmental impacts 

during some of the social processes described above, the scientific 

research requires both quantitative and qualitative approaches. 

The goals, strategies, and activities for this implementation plan build 

upon the science recommendations articulated at the March 2010 

symposium, Strengthening Environmental Justice Research and DecisionMaking: A Symposium on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental 

Health Impacts, and the subsequent “100-Day Challenge” Report 

developed by the Agency in response to recommendations generated 

 

2

Healthy People is a set of goals and objectives with 10-year targets designed to guide national health 

promotion and disease prevention efforts to improve the health of all people in the United States. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 6

from the symposium. A consistent theme throughout the March 2010 

symposium was the linkages between science and policy. These 

discussions were framed within the context of identifying research and 

scientific needs that are necessary to ensure that environmental justice 

concerns and social disparities in environmental health are incorporated 

in EPA’s decisions for the purpose of advancing EPA policy on 

environmental justice. Several conceptual frameworks have been 

published in the last few years that relate environmental justice and 

health disparities to upstream, structural determinants of health (CSDH 

2008; Gee and Payne-Sturges 2004; Krieger 2001; Habermann and 

Gouveia 2008; Morello-Frosch 2002; Morello-Frosch and Shenassa 2006; 

Schulz et al 2002; Wakefield and Baxter 2010). 

Symposium participants suggested several actions that EPA and other 

federal agencies take in order to reduce data gaps in the area of 

environmental justice, overcome limitations in the theories and methods 

for conducting research on environmental health disparities and 

particularly research supported by the federal government, and 

overcome limitations in practice of risk assessment at EPA. The science 

recommendations from environmental justice advocates and other 

stakeholders are captured in Appendix C.
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 7

1.4 Organizational Structure 

The specific science and research actions described in Section 2.0 were 

developed through a cross-Agency workgroup for the Agency’s 100-Day 

Report follow-up to the March 2010 Symposium. Representation on the 

workgroup included the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), the Office of 

Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), the Office of Policy 

(OP), the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER), the 

Office of Water (OW), the Office of Research and Development (ORD), 

and Regions 6, 7, 8, and 10. Region 7 serves as ORD’s Lead Region. 

Going forward, ORD, as lead for the Science Tools Development 

Implementation Plan, proposes to establish a more permanent structure 

within ORD, which we are planning to name the Environment Health and 

Society Workgroup. This workgroup will serve as ORD science experts 

and points of contact on environmental justice, environmental disparities, 

and disproportionate impacts science issues. ORD’s National Center for 

Environmental Research (NCER) and the Office of Science Policy (OSP) will 

jointly sponsor and co-chair this new workgroup. The co-chairs will also 

lead the Plan EJ 2014 Science Tools Development Workgroup and monitor 

the Science Implementation Plan for Plan EJ 2014. ORD is considering reconstituting the intra-Agency group on science for the 100-Day Report to 

serve as the Plan EJ 20114 Science Group. ORD will coordinate with all 

the Plan EJ 2014 implementation workgroups to ascertain how current 

activities can be better tailored or leveraged to address Plan EJ 2014 

workgroups' science needs under the five strategies (listed in Section 1.2) 

and to identify future science activities. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 8

2.0 IMPLEMENTATION 

Below we describe several major science and research activities under 

the five strategies. These activities will be carried out with existing 

resources, provided these resources remain available. 

2.1 Activities 

Strategy 1: Apply integrated transdisciplinary 

and community-based participatory research 

approaches with a focus on addressing multimedia, cumulative impacts and equity in 

environmental health and environmental 

conditions.

Activity 1.1: Establish an Integrated 

Transdisciplinary ORD Research Program on 

Environment and Community Health – Sustainable 

and Healthy Communities Research Program. 

The new Administration at EPA and in particular in 

ORD recognizes that fragmented research programs 

cannot solve 21st century environmental challenges 

including disparities in environmental health. ORD 

is leading the way by integrating 12 research 

programs that were mostly media-specific into four 

transdisciplinary programs aligned with EPA’s new

Strategic Plan. As part of this re-structuring, ORD is 

fully establishing and supporting a new integrated transdisciplinary 

research program on environment and community health known as 

“Sustainable and Healthy Communities.” This program seeks to adopt a 

more holistic view of environment and health as its conceptual 

framework, take on research projects that address many of the topics 

raised at the Symposium, and conduct research in a manner consistent 

with principles of community-based participatory research. Both ORD 

intramural and extramural resources from existing human health, land, 

sustainability, and ecosystems research programs would be directed to 

support this new program. For this new research program to be 

successful, implementation of many of the recommended actions on 

capacity building within ORD and incorporating community perspectives 

is critical. 

As part of the new Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research 

Program (SHCRP), EPA’s new Science to Achieve Research (STAR) grant 

solicitations are being considered to support tribal community 

environmental health research and to establish Centers of Excellence on 

Environment and Health Disparities to examine the joint impacts of social 

and physical environmental conditions, processes and systems on health 

in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National 

Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD)

Building Scientific Capacity Among Tribal 

Environmental Professionals

EPA has a long history of supporting capacity building 

among tribal environmental professionals, primarily through 

its partnership with the Institute for Tribal Environmental 

Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona University. The 

Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) has supported this 

project for over 15 years. Consistent with our trust 

responsibility to tribes, OAR works with Tribes to increase 

their capability to address their environmental concerns. 

OAR supports the training and educational efforts of ITEP 

in the areas of air quality and climate change impacts and 

adaptation planning, as well as the work of the Tribal Air 

Monitoring Support (TAMS) Center, which builds and 

strengthens the technical capacity of tribal staff. The 

TAMS Center cross-trains tribal air professionals on air 

monitoring, indoor air quality, radon and asthma. EPA is 

building on this model to develop an Environmental Justice 

Community Learning Center.
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 9

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 ORD’s new research program is responsive to suggestions from 

stakeholders to create and institute a new scientific research 

approach that develops a more holistic understanding of the 

environmental and health. This approach will also integrate 

perspectives from community residents and leaders, communitybased non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and community 

health and environmental quality advocates in the development of 

EPA’s scientific research agendas, as well as in data collection, 

conduct of risk and exposure assessments, and risk management 

decisions. 

 The hallmark of the integrated proposed transdisciplinary approach is 

“systems thinking,” which seeks to understand the complex 

interactions between social, natural, and built environmental 

systems, conditions and policies that impact human health and wellbeing. To explicitly address environmental justice concerns, this 

program will need to direct its attention to how these complex 

interactions result in unequal environmental health conditions or 

disproportionate impacts among (diverse) disadvantaged population 

groups, communities, neighborhoods and individuals. 

 Anticipated outcomes of this program include new information and 

tools to support more holistic environmental decision making at 

national, regional, state, tribal, and local levels. It is anticipated that 

this program will also inform strategies for alleviating systemic drivers 

of racial and socio-economic disparities in environmental health 

outcomes and access to healthy environments. 

Impacts on EPA Programs and Activities 

 The Assistant Administrator for ORD announced the re-structuring of 

ORD’s 12 media-specific research programs into four integrated 

programs in Fall 2010. The Sustainable and Healthy Communities 

Research Program is an important part of this effort. This new 

program is currently in the early stages of organizing and 

development. Input from EPA program offices will be sought in early 

2011. Then in late spring, input from outside stakeholders will be 

solicited. Bringing together diversity of disciplines to plan and 

implement integrated research programs will make EPA more 

effective at developing sustainable solutions to complex, 21st century 

environmental problems. It will create a culture where different 

disciplines are encouraged to find innovative solutions and will make 

EPA’s research more timely, relevant and responsive to the short-, 

medium- and longer-term needs of our partners and stakeholders. 

Several external advisory committees continue to recommend this 

approach. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 10

Timeframe 

 Establish and fully support a Sustainable and Healthy Communities 

Research Program (Fiscal Year [FY] 2011). 

 Incorporate ideas and concerns from stakeholders and 

representatives from disproportionately impacted communities and 

populations (FY 2011). 

 Issue joint Request for Applications (RFA) or other funding 

mechanisms to collaborate with NIH National Institute on Minority 

Health and Health Disparities to establish Centers of Excellence on 

Environment and Health Disparities (FY 2012). 

Activity 1.2: Develop technical guidance, analytic methods, tools and 

data to advance the integration of environmental justice in EPA’s decision 

making. 

EPA’s regulatory decision making is informed by scientific data and 

analysis. To facilitate the process of using scientific data, EPA scientists 

and decision makers, as well as communities, community advocates and 

other stakeholders, require consistent and systematic guidance on how to 

conduct these analyses. They also depend on scientifically valid tools and 

methods, as well as information communicated by environmental data. 

While the guidance, methods, tools, and data for advancing 

environmental health protection has been an area of significant 

investment by EPA, these tools of the trade have not been fully adapted 

or developed to specifically address environmental justice issues. 

EPA’s commitment to integrating environmental justice in all of its 

decisions, policies, and programs has resulted in investments to develop 

technical guidance, analytic methods, tools, and data. For example, EPA 

is in the process of developing guidance entitled “Technical Guidance for 

Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking Activities” through 

Plan EJ 2014’s Incorporating Environmental Justice into Rulemaking 

Implementation Plan. This document is expected to aid EPA staff and 

managers in incorporating environmental justice into EPA’s analytical 

frameworks such as risk assessment, and economic analysis, and other 

scientific and policy assessments. 

EPA’s OAR is piloting several kinds of analyses that are useful in informing 

managers about the potential environmental justice implications of air 

rulemakings. OAR is evaluating and testing several analytical approaches 

including: (1) proximity-based socio-demographic analyses, which 

highlight the characteristics of those living closest to sources of air 

pollution; (2) exposure and health risk modeling that breaks out data 

based on socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., race, income); and (3) 

benefits mapping that shows the distribution of benefits of a regulation 

to various socio-demographic groups. OAR expects to learn from their 

experiences in using these approaches. OAR will revise its methods 

accordingly, as it seeks to do a better of job of identifying rules that may 

present environmental justice concerns and to understand more fully the 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 11

implications of air rules on overburdened populations. OAR’s experiences 

will help to inform the overall Agency effort to develop the technical 

guidance. 

ORD plans to evaluate existing tools developed by ORD scientists with 

respect to appropriateness and ease of use for lay experts in 

communities. To improve access to Agency tools, ORD plans to work with 

stakeholders to develop a series of free regionally-based trainings on 

EPA’s information and assessment tools. ORD also plans to partner with 

EPA regional offices, other federal agencies, and consortia of 

environmental justice and community health non-profits and communitybased organizations to host community-based tools workshops and 

Regional Tools Summits. There will be a specific focus on tools to 

evaluate environmental justice and health disparities policies and 

programs. 

ORD proposes to continue to develop cumulative risk/impact assessment 

techniques and analytics, tools, and mapping methods that can be 

applied at multiple geographic scales. For example, ORD has committed 

$8 million in research investment through STAR grants on cumulative risk 

assessment methods that incorporate community social contexts (nonchemical stressors) and indicators of population vulnerability (see 

http://www.epa.gov/ncer/cumulativerisk). The Agency will ensure 

research results from these new STAR grants on cumulative risks, and 

chemical and non-chemical stressors are well disseminated and used by 

EPA program offices. 

ORD’s Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) and the National Exposure 

Research Laboratory (NERL) have launched an initiative to develop a webbased cumulative risk assessment tool, the Community Cumulative 

Assessment Tool (CAAT). This tool will enable a more complete and 

thorough evaluation and understanding of physiological and 

socioeconomic stressors that result in cumulative impacts in U.S. 

communities and populations. This broader framework for decision 

making leads to inherently more sustainable outcomes as a result of a 

more complete understanding of the factors constituting and contributing 

to risk in identified populations. 

The CCAT is designed to implement a multi-media approach to 

cumulative risks in communities facing environmental justice issues; and 

will leverage datasets, research, and certain Geographic Information 

System (GIS) capabilities that were developed for C-FERST in the 

Communities and Cumulative Risk Research Program in ORD. The CCAT 

will also reflect the cumulative impact considerations outlined in the 

“Technical Guidance for Incorporating Environmental Justice into 

Rulemaking Activities” and provide insight on environmental justice to 

the Risk Assessment Forum (RAF) Technical Panel developing the EPA 

Cumulative Risk Assessment (CRA) Guidelines. The project is directly 

responsive to the recognition that vulnerability and health disparities are 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 12

interrelated and must be studied within the risk assessment paradigm. 

The developers of the CCAT will engage with environmental justice and 

community-based stakeholders to inform the development of the CCAT 

and related Agency cumulative risk assessment guidelines. This approach 

purposely builds skills among EPA scientists to design research and risk 

assessment protocols informed by collaboration with affected 

communities. 

At the March 2010 Symposium, participants requested EPA to develop 

easy-to-use GIS tools. ORD’s National Atlas of Ecosystem Services is 

developing an Urban Atlas, which will include high-resolution mapping for 

100-250 populated areas selected along several gradients of concern 

(e.g., size, location, demographics, and environmental and health 

condition). It will feature selected small towns and rural communities, 

including rural Tribal lands. By mapping the current availability of “green” 

infrastructure and applying existing models for pollutant removal, water 

storage, and other functions, ORD’s National Atlas will estimate the 

extent to which ecosystem services contribute to the basic needs of 

populated places. 

Additionally, the Atlas will reveal under-served areas where 

management to enhance specific ecosystem services would 

benefit community health and well-being. This local component 

of the Atlas will include demographic mapping to identify 

overburdened sub-populations that may benefit 

disproportionately from “green” infrastructure and/or are 

disproportionately underserved. The Atlas will permit 

stratification of urban and other populated areas to develop 

separate estimates of ecosystem services for communities 

identified as socially vulnerable. Additionally, it will incorporate 

accessible health data to map aspects of population susceptibility 

to diminished or degraded services. EPA is conducting this 

project in collaboration with multiple federal agencies, including 

the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as academic 

and other educational organizations. EPA regions and ORD’s 

Human Health Research Program are interacting with 

communities to identify priority issues and build capacity for 

working with mapping tools to inform risk evaluation and 

management decisions. 

EPA’s ORD is also developing an Environmental Quality Index tool for 

measuring county level environmental quality, which will increase 

understanding about how multiple stressors simultaneously contribute to 

health disparities in minority, low-income, tribal, and indigenous3

populations. 

 

3 When these terms are used in this document, they refer to entities and individuals in the United 

States only
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 13

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 The development of guidance, methods, tools, and data to advance 

the integration of environmental justice into EPA’s decision-making 

processes is responsive to several comments provided by 

stakeholders. For example, these activities address suggestions that 

EPA consider the areas of policy, capacity building, and promoting 

healthy and sustainable communities. These stakeholder comments 

recommend EPA to: (1) develop analytic and assessment tools and 

data collection approaches that can be used by community health 

advocates and environmental justice groups; (2) adopt multi-media 

cross-program approaches to addressing cumulative environmental 

exposures in stakeholder communities, as well as restructuring risk 

assessment to better account for multiple stressors; (3) increase 

community capacity to assess their environment; (4) develop a more 

holistic understanding of environment and health; and (5) integrate 

environmental justice in all its decisions. Better integration of 

environmental justice into EPA’s decisions directly benefits

communities impacted by EPA’s regulatory activities. The 

overarching goal of developing these tools of the trade is to aid EPA 

staff to develop regulatory options that fully protect the health and 

environment of all people, as well as help communities to better 

understand their environmental problems.

 Community-based “stakeholders” will benefit from CCAT through 

access to improved information that integrates their own 

understanding of local conditions with data drawn from EPA’s

databases. Depending upon application, benefits may include 

improved capacity to collaborate with Agency experts, identify 

priorities, and pursue risk reduction strategies to improve public 

health and the environment.

 Key outcomes of the Urban Atlas will be to inform community 

members and decision makers as to how natural resources are critical 

community assets, and how their absence or degradation may be 

contributing to cumulative burdens on human health and well-being. 

Furthermore, the integrated, multi-media approach of the Urban 

Atlas will provide information on the co-benefits accrued to the 

community when applying ecosystem services to mitigate specific 

environmental contaminants or other priority health risks. 

Impacts on EPA programs and activities 

 These actions are also responsive to several core focus areas of EPA’s 

Plan EJ 2014 and the principles on environmental justice articulated 

in EPA’s Strategic Plan for 2011-2015. It is also responsive to the 

mandate in EO 12898 which requires that EPA identify and address 

disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental 

effects of its policies, programs and activities on minority, low 

income, and tribal populations.

 Results produced by the new research grants on cumulative risks and 

impacts will demonstrate successful approaches to incorporating 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 14

community knowledge into the development of such tools and the 

application of qualitative approaches and social science methods into 

cumulative impact assessments. EPA’s programs will benefit from the 

development of the CCAT through engaging with stakeholders to 

address the community-based assessment of cumulative risks with 

environmental justice concerns. 

 Intensive engagement with environmental justice stakeholders will 

improve the incorporation of these issues in the design of the CRA

Guidelines. The CCAT will improve the capacity of EPA regional risk 

assessors to assist communities in understanding the complexity of 

risk, and provide the means by which to identify priorities. Also the 

CRA-EJ software will assist programs in implementing the planned 

“Technical Guidance for Incorporating Environmental Justice into 

Rulemaking Activities” by facilitating a step-by-step approach to 

evaluating cumulative risks and impacts. More broadly the CRA 

Guidelines will affect risk-based decision making across the full range 

of EPA’s programs, nationally, regionally, and more locally. The CCAT 

is a project under the RAF CRA Technical Panel, and will directly 

incorporate environmental justice into CRA and thus introduce 

environmental justice risk-based considerations throughout EPA’s

policies and decision making. 

 The process for developing these tools, data, methods, and guidance 

will lead to innovative approaches and tools for incorporating 

environmental justice concerns in EPA’s regulatory and policy 

decision making. Other innovations include identifying research 

needs and data gaps on topics such as environmental public health 

indicators to assess disparities, equity impact assessment methods, 

metrics to assess inequities in risk assessments to support rule 

making, and policy and program evaluation. ORD plans to bridge 

these data gaps through both intramural and extramural research 

programs. 

 Initial community interaction for the development of the Urban Atlas 

will proceed through EPA’s existing initiatives such as the CARE and 

Environmental Justice Showcase Communities programs and the 

EPA/U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)/U.S. 

Department of Transportation (DOT) Partnership for Sustainable 

Communities, and their EPA liaisons. Information about ecosystem 

services will expand options for improving community health and 

well-being, and clarify economic and other trade-offs involved in 

alternate environmental mitigation and remediation decisions. The 

selection of focal areas along several gradients is designed to 

facilitate the application of observed linkages between community 

welfare and ecosystem services to additional populated places of 

concern to EPA. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 15

Timeframe 

 Develop final draft of technical guidance by FY 2013. 

 Develop and refine screening tools that identify air rules that raise 

potential environmental justice concerns (FY 2011). 

 Determine the analytical tools are most appropriate for particular 

types of air rulemaking (FY 2011-12). 

 Identify any additional analytical tools that may be needed to better 

understand the environmental justice implications of air rulemakings 

(FY 2011-12). 

 Host community-based tools workshop(s) and Regional Tools 

Summits with focus on environmental justice and health disparities, 

to solicit recommendations and inform EPA’s actions on tools under 

Plan EJ 2014 (FY 2012-13). 

 Develop final Environmental Quality Index (Long term). 

 Beta test a prototype of the CCAT in early 2012.

 Complete first phase of the Urban Atlas will be completed in FY 2013; 

incorporate additional populated areas will begin in FY 2012 and FY 

2013, contingent upon funding. 

Strategy 2: Incorporate perspectives from community-based 

organizations and community leaders into EPA research agendas and 

engage in collaborative partnerships on science and research to address 

environmental justice.

A few initiatives are highlighted here to better engage with communities 

in EPA science activities and implementation of regulatory programs. 

Activity 2.1: Establish Community Engagement Initiative. 

OSWER has launched the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI), 

www.epa.gov/oswer/engagementinitiative/, which is designed to 

enhance OSWER and regional offices' engagement with local 

communities and stakeholders (e.g., state and local governments, tribes, 

academia, private industry, other federal agencies, non-profit 

organizations) to help them meaningfully participate in government 

decisions on land cleanup, emergency preparedness and response, and 

the management of hazardous substances and waste. 

Activity 2.2: Re-engage with National Environmental Justice Advisory 

Committee. 

ORD intends to establish a health and research workgroup or 

subcommittee within National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee 

(NEJAC) to advise the EPA Administrator and ORD in the area of scientific 

research, health impacts, and environmental risks and exposures that 

directly relate to environmental justice. An initial task of the workgroup 

will be to advise ORD on the development of the Sustainable and Health 

Communities Research Program. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 16

Activity 2.3: Support Community-based Participatory Research. 

Participatory research methods will be integrated into the new ORD 

research program on Sustainable and Healthy Communities and new 

extramural research solicitations to support CBPR are under 

consideration. A significant feature of the Sustainable and Health 

Communities Research program will be community and regional based 

projects. Applying participatory research methods will be the hallmark of 

this new program within ORD. Community-based participatory research 

(CBPR) fosters more complete understandings of the existing interactions 

between environmental conditions, human health and ecosystems. 

Researchers, practitioners, community members, and funding institutions 

have increasingly recognized the importance of comprehensive, holistic, 

and participatory approaches to environmental research and later stages 

of intervention. For EPA, applying CBPR in its scientific research and 

program planning promises to lead to more appropriate solutions for the 

persistent and uneven social disparities in health as well as access to 

clean and safe environments. 

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 These actions are in agreement with suggestions from environmental 

justice stakeholders to integrate perspectives from community 

residents and community leaders in the development of the EPA’s 

scientific research agendas as well as in data collection. 

 OSWER’s CEI will include direct outreach to state and local 

governments, tribes, academia, private industry, other federal 

agencies, and non-profit organizations. The CEI is designed to help 

stakeholders have meaning participation in EPA’s decisions on land 

cleanup, emergency preparedness and response, and the 

management of hazardous substances and waste. It will also improve 

OSWER efforts to protect human health and the environment 

through site cleanups and other risk reduction activities. 

 Re-establishing a NEJAC health and research workgroup or 

subcommittee would provide a critically needed formal mechanism 

for environmental justice stakeholders, community-based 

organizations to provide input and feedback into the EPA/ORD 

research initiatives. Presently, ORD lacks any mechanism for public 

input into its research agenda. If concerns about environmental and 

health inequalities are not “on the table” they will be not be 

addressed by the EPA research enterprise. However it must be 

recognized that a NEJAC subcommittee cannot be the only approach 

for soliciting the contribution of environmental justice stakeholders. 

ORD will need to identify additional approaches for soliciting input 

and collaborating with environmental justice stakeholders (e.g., 

through regional outreach, the Regionally Applied Research Effort 

(RARE) program, and partnering with EPA program offices and other 

federal agencies). Creating formal mechanisms for receiving 

stakeholder input assures that community wisdom, perspectives and 

values are duly considered and accommodated in the development of 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 17

ORD’s new program. Moreover, such mechanisms assure that the 

results of this program, which subsequently influence decision 

making at EPA, also consider robust community input. 

Impacts on EPA programs and activities 

 Nearly all of OSWER programs and activities will be impacted by the 

various CEI actions. The CEI is designed to enhance OSWER and 

regional offices' engagement with local communities and 

stakeholders, and to help them meaningfully participate in 

government decisions on land cleanup, emergency preparedness and 

response, and the management of hazardous substances and waste. 

 The first task for this NEJAC workgroup could be to advise ORD on 

developing the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research 

Program initiative, which is currently being discussed. Since this 

research program is in its early stages of development, engaging a 

NEJAC workgroup now could be extremely beneficial to ORD to help 

set the course, identify critical research questions that should be 

addressed and how best to solicit input and potential partnerships 

with community-based organization and environmental justice 

leaders such as hosting public forums on the Sustainable Community 

Environments and Public Health research program. 

Timeframe 

 Each of the CEI actions has defined deliverables and timeline for their 

completion. Nearly all of the actions have significant deliverables due 

in FY 2011. 

 Incorporate ideas and concerns from stakeholders and 

representatives from disproportionately impacted communities and 

populations (FY 2011). 

 Establish a NEJAC workgroup on research by FY 2012.

 Issue joint RFA or other funding mechanism to collaborate with NIH 

National Institute Minority Health and Health Disparities to establish 

national research Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health 

Disparities (FY 2012). 

Strategy 3: Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues 

of research, policy, and action to address environmental and health 

disparities. 

Environmental justice and related concerns for health inequalities are 

complex and multi-dimensional. Solutions to these societal problems 

require intersectoral and intergovernmental actions. Environmental 

justice is not solely EPA’s responsibility, just as health disparities cannot 

be seen solely as a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

problem. At present, governmental approaches to promoting and 

managing health and it determinants, namely the environment, are 

fragmented. Symposium participants recognized in order to achieve 

environmental justice, a multi-stakeholder, multi-system approach is 

required. Within federal agencies, we need to strengthen federal 

interagency collaboration to improve research that can impact 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 18

environmental and health practice, programs, and policy and formulate 

solutions for communities. 

Activity 3.1: Join the Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities. 

EPA’s ORD will actively participate on the interagency Federal 

Collaboration on Health Disparities Research (FCHDR) and represent EPA 

on the Executive Steering Committee 

(http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/fchdr/). The Executive Committee of the 

FCHDR was created to bring together selected agency representatives to 

seek practical solutions to advance health disparities research, and foster 

greater federal coordination, collaboration, and communication around 

the elimination of health disparities. 

Federal departments represented on the Executive committee include: 

 U.S. Department of Education 

 National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research 

 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 

 U.S. Department of Justice 

 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

 National Science Foundation 

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention 

 HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration 

 HHS, National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities 

 HHS, Office of Minority Health 

The FCHDR’s goal is to ensure that health disparities research is 

conducted as an integrated and inclusive field of study, rather than as an 

aggregate of independent research activities occurring in separate 

research domains. FCHDR members will work together to explore needs 

and opportunities for pooling scientific expertise and resources to 

conduct, translate, and disseminate research most needed to accelerate 

the elimination of health disparities. 

FCHDR goals and strategies are to: 

1. Identify health disparities challenges including the scientific and 

practical evidence most relevant to underpinning future policy and 

action. 

2. Increase and maintain awareness about federal government efforts 

and opportunities to address health disparities. 

3. Determine how evidence can be translated into practice to address 

health disparities and promote innovation. 

4. Advise on possible objectives and measures for future research, 

building on the successes and experiences of health disparities 

experts. 

5. Publish reports that will contribute to the development of the FCHDR 

strategic vision and plan. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 19

Activity 3.2: Engage with President’s Task Force on Environmental Health 

Risks and Safety Risks to Children. 

EPA’s OAR, the Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP), ORD, and 

others are collaborating and participating with other federal agencies on 

the newly re-established President’s Task Force on Environmental Health 

Risks and Safety Risks to Children. One focal area of their work is on 

asthma disparities among minority and disadvantaged children. In early 

December 2010, a Federal Workshop on Asthma Disparities was held in 

Washington, D.C., to foster interagency coordination on development and 

implementation of a detailed Federal Action Plan to address asthma 

disparities. 

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 More coordinated federal approach to research, policy, and action to 

address environmental justice health disparities. 

Impact on EPA programs and activities 

 EPA’s participation in these three federal initiatives will identify and 

create opportunities to combine resources to tackle issues of 

disparities in health and access to clean environments; and will 

increase access and exposure of all EPA offices, including ORD, to 

non-traditional EPA disciplines such as social science and concepts 

such as social determinants of health. 

Timeframe 

 ORD’s participation with the federal collaboration is ongoing. 

 Participation with other federal agencies on the President’s Task 

Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children to 

work on asthma disparities among minority and disadvantaged 

children that can be addressed through interagency coordination on 

development and implementation of a detailed Federal Action Plan 

(FY 2011- 2015). 

Strategy 4: Build and strengthen the technical capacity of EPA 

scientists on conducting research and related science activities in 

partnership with impacted communities and translating research 

results to inform change.

Along with efforts to increase technical capacity in communities, EPA 

needs to build up its capacity to work with communities in order for real 

progress to be made. Several recommendations from the Symposium 

address this issue and call for EPA to: 

 Train EPA staff on effective outreach and dialog with communities; 

 Develop capacity within the Agency. 

 Provide training for EPA risk assessors and managers on community 

engagement. 

 Consider using qualitative approaches in risk assessment. 

 Establish multi-disciplinary teams to work on issues. 

 Encourage multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 20

 Explore approaches for interacting with communities that can build 

collective efficacy and social capital. 

 Support participation of communities as equal partners in research; 

include them as equal partners in the co-production of knowledge. 

 Include community representatives and perspectives in the design of 

studies/research. 

Social science disciplines like social epidemiology indicate that EPA needs 

to look more at upstream factors – social processes that ultimately 

process the disparities in risks and health outcomes. 

Activity 4.1: Provide training to EPA scientists on CBPR. 

Both ORD and OSWER intend to provide training to scientists on 

principles of community-based participatory research, health disparities, 

and environmental justice. Both offices will look for opportunities to 

collaborate on providing training for staff. For example, OSWER’s 

Community Involvement and Program Initiatives Branch (CIPIB) sponsors 

a Community Involvement University (CIU) to provide training courses for 

Superfund Program Community Involvement Coordinators (CIC) and 

other EPA and EPA-affiliated staff. Participants are provided with the 

necessary skills, techniques, and practices to engage the community in 

the Superfund process. CIU offers a variety of courses each year at 

regional offices and at national conferences or training events. These 

courses could be offered to ORD scientists and modified to address 

community-engagement in more of the research context. 

In order to design appropriate capacity training program, ORD will first 

evaluate current understanding and research capacity of ORD sciences 

regarding principles of community-based participatory research, health 

disparities, and environmental justice. ORD will then design and 

implement training for its staff. 

Activity 4.2: Build Social Science Capacity within ORD. 

The National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) is developing an 

ORD research agenda for behavioral and social sciences as they impact 

and affect environmental protection as well as the evolution of 

environmental policy. Environmental justice consideration will be critical 

to this research agenda. ORD will conduct Individual and focus group 

interviews of behavioral and social science experts to solicit their 

thoughts and identify the most relevant current research as well as 

known gaps in four areas: behavioral economics, decision theory, 

management science, and risk perception. Following the expert 

interview, NCER will host a workshop with the scientific leaders identified 

through the interview phase (30-50 people). 

NCER plans to establish a cooperative agreement with a professional 

society concerned with applying the social science research to 

contemporary environmental health issues. This effort is intended to 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 21

help ORD devise approaches and methods for truly incorporating the 

social sciences into its research and assessment activities. Activities 

under the cooperative agreement could include: 

 Providing training to ORD staff on incorporating qualitative 

approaches and social science methods into cumulative impact 

assessments. 

 Developing approaches to incorporate community knowledge in such 

tools for cumulative impact assessments. 

 Offering webinars and training to cultivate analytical skills among 

ORD staff to examine the social and economic systems that create 

cumulative adverse environmental impacts in communities. 

Activity 4.3: Develop Environmental Justice Risk Management Training 

for OPP. 

The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has created a new training module 

as a part of its regular staff training program to ensure that 

environmental justice and sensitive population considerations are fully 

incorporated and more clearly characterized in the pesticide risk 

assessment process. The training module consists of two components: 

(1) addressing general background on environmental justice, and (2) 

integrating environmental justice considerations through OPP risk 

management to address environmental justice issues identified by the 

risk assessments. 

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 Impacted communities and environmental justice leaders should see 

improved interactions with Agency scientists. 

 The goal of OPP’s training is to provide the tools to better identify 

potential environmental justice issues. Enhanced risk assessment 

methodologies will result from a closer and more focused look at the 

toxicity and exposure patterns specific to each pesticide and pesticide 

use that could present a disproportionate risk. Areas now considered 

in pesticide risk assessment (hazard assessment, dietary exposure, 

occupational and resident exposure, incident data) will be considered 

through an environmental justice lens. 

Impact on EPA programs and activities 

 We anticipate that the capacity of Agency scientists to conduct 

research in partnership with impacted communities, to understand 

and employ social science methods in environmental research, and 

translate research results to inform change will be greatly improved. 

This will help ORD’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research 

Program meet its objectives. 

 The OPP training program will improve how environmental justice is 

incorporated by risk managers. This training is expected to influence 

pesticide registration and re-registration decisions to more robustly 

incorporate environmental justice considerations. To date, 10

training sessions on the first component and a total of 160 OPP staff 

completed the training. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 22

Timeframe 

 Host scientist to scientist workshop on behavioral and social sciences 

(late FY 2011). 

 Design a research capacity training program for ORD scientists, which 

could include self-paced training on community-based and 

participatory research CBPR offered by Michigan Public Health 

Training Center and joint courses through OSWER’s Community 

Involvement University (FY 2012–2013). 

 Complete the new OPP module on risk management training by early 

FY 2012. The goal will be to have 100 percent of risk assessors and 

managers trained by the end of FY 2012. 

Strategy 5: Build and strengthen technical capacity of communitybased organizations and community environmental justice and health 

leaders to address environmental health disparities and environmental 

sustainability issues.

Community capacity has been defined as “a set of dynamic community 

traits, resources, and associational patterns that can be brought to bear 

for community-building and community health improvement” (Norton et 

al 2002). “Community capacity building activities” are those designed to 

increase community capacity and emphasize (1) assets and 

empowerment (versus disease and deficiency); (2) the role of bottom-up, 

community-determined processes and agendas (versus topdown/externally determined ones); and (3) the processes for developing 

community competence. 

The commissioned paper on community-capacity presented at the March 

2010 Symposium identified important domains of action to strengthen 

community capacity, including leadership, participation, skills, resources, 

social and organizational networks, sense of community and 

understanding of community history, community power, community 

values, community cohesion, language capacity, and community 

information. 

(See 

http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/calendar/2010/mar17/papers.html) 

In addressing all of these domains, strategies for enhancing community 

capacity may include training and technology transfer, technical 

assistance, community-based participatory research, empowerment 

approaches, community organizing, and social action. Commissioned 

paper authors noted that capacity-building strategies that give more 

control to communities (e.g., CBPR, empowerment, and community 

organizing) may more fully address the fundamental causes of 

environmental disparities than more Agency-controlled processes (e.g., 

training and technical assistance). 

(See 

http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/calendar/2010/mar17/presentations/fr

eudenberg.pdf) 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 23

These community-driven strategies are more labor and resource intensive 

and require a higher level of commitment from communities, 

researchers, and agencies, as well as a new set of capabilities on the part 

of Agency personnel with regard to the skills needed to, for example, 

facilitate meetings, communicate clearly, and create an atmosphere of 

inquiry and trust. 

In order to more effectively reduce disparate environmental exposure 

and engage the public in making environmental policy decisions, the EPA 

must engage relevant constituencies in participation processes early, 

provide these constituencies with the resources and information that can 

contribute to effective participation, and ensure that the outcomes 

reflect participation. Specifically, helping communities develop the 

capacities to create, access, use, and interpret scientific information and 

changing Agency practices to better incorporate community voices in 

scientific activities and decisions will be a key and proper task for EPA. 

EPA, therefore, proposes the following actions to establish programs and 

provide federal government support to increase technical and scientific 

capacity in communities. 

Activity 5.1: Build Awareness and Community Capacity to Address 

Asthma Disparities. 

In response to the growing asthma problem where minority, low-income, 

tribal, and indigenous populations are disproportionately affected, EPA’s 

OAR established the Asthma Program to promote scientific understanding 

of environmental asthma triggers and ways to manage them. The 

program collaborates with partners to support research and educate the 

public about asthma and ways to manage environmental triggers. 

Partners include government agencies, universities and research centers, 

the health care community, nonprofit organizations, and community 

programs. Major program activities center around the Communities in 

Action for Asthma Friendly Environments initiative, and include support 

for real time peer-to-peer learning, technology transfer and resources for 

community-based asthma programs through an online network 

(www.AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org), “pacing” events (National 

Asthma Forum, regional events and webinars), and support to non-profit 

organizations focused on health care provider training, improving school 

environments and raising public awareness about asthma (see also 

Supporting Community-Based Action Programs, Strategy 2, Activity 3). 

Activity 5.2: Build Tribal Community Capacity to Monitor Air Quality. 

OAR has a long history of supporting capacity building among tribal 

environmental professionals, primarily through its partnership with the 

Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona 

University, which OAR has supported for over 15 years. Consistent with 

our trust responsibility to tribes, OAR works with tribes to increase their 

capability to address their environmental concerns. OAR supports the 

training and educational efforts of ITEP in the areas of air quality and 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 24

climate change impacts and adaptation planning, as well as the work of 

the Tribal Air Monitoring Support (TAMS) Center, which builds and 

strengthens the technical capacity of tribal staff. The TAMS Center crosstrains tribal air professionals on air monitoring, indoor air quality, radon, 

and asthma (see also Supporting Community-Based Action Programs, 

Strategy 2). 

Activity 5.3: Increase Citizen Participation in Science and Decisions. 

ORD proposes to create a program, in partnership with other 

governmental agencies, private non-profits, professional societies, and 

private foundations, to develop the capacity of community leaders to 

understand the role of science in decision making and influence the 

decision-making process and on the use of data and other information to 

document disparities and concerns in their communities. 

Activity 5.4: Establish Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health 

Disparities. 

Several new extramural research solicitations are under consideration to 

fund research that address specific research needs and topics raised at 

the March 2010 Symposium and that fully employ CBPR approaches such 

as establishing Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health 

Disparities. The aim for these Centers will be to examine the joint 

impacts of social and physical environmental conditions and processes on 

health, link with community health clinics to increase their capacity to 

address occupational and environmental health concerns of their 

constituents, and design policy solutions to ameliorate and prevent 

disparities. 

Activity 5.5: Build diverse environmental workforce and enhancing the 

capacities of Minority Academic Institutions (MAI) to engage in scientific 

research and workforce training 

The National Center for Environmental Research’s (NCER) Fellowship 

Program is implementing several initiatives to strengthen EPA’s efforts to 

encourage and support environmental justice research among the next 

generation of environmental scientists and engineers. For example, 

Environmental justice research topics are highlighted in the STAR 

Fellowships RFA and environmental justice considerations have been 

included as review criteria under "Broader Societal Impacts" for all 

fellowship applications. 

As part of the Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) fellowship, NCER has 

a goal of enhancing capacity at academic institutions that are not well 

funded for environmental research capacity, including HBCUs. ORD 

considers ineligible those institutions identified as receiving more than 

$35 million in annual federal research. NCER has increased resources 

allotted to the GRO program to increase GRO funded students, which can 

enhance our efforts in this area. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 25

OSWER will support research through the Faculty and Student Teams 

(FaST) Program, a cooperative effort between the U.S. Department of 

Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Science Foundation 

(NSF). Faculty from colleges and universities with limited research 

facilities and those institutions serving populations, women and 

minorities underrepresented in the fields of science, engineering, and 

technology are encouraged to apply for the FaST program. The FaST 

program will support a team comprised of one faculty member and two 

to three undergraduate students. The program provides hands-on 

research opportunities in the DOE or EPA national laboratories during the 

summer. The faculty member identifies a mutually beneficial research 

area amenable to collaboration by the faculty member and the laboratory 

scientist. 

The EPA Region 6 University-Community Partnerships initiative will 

facilitate and nurture a partnership between universities and community 

groups to increase overburdened communities’ capacity to address their 

environmental challenges through technical assistance. Memorandums 

of Understanding (MOU) are in place between EPA Region 6 and the 

University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and EPA Region 6, EPA’s Office of 

Water and Texas A&M Kingsville. 

Within the federal government, EPA has been a leader in the use of 

collaborative approaches to accomplish strategic goals and objectives. 

Learning from this rich experience can help the Agency realize the full 

potential of collaborative processes and accelerate environmental 

progress. The ability to collaborate effectively with MAIs will become 

more important as the growing complexity of environmental problems 

will require diverse approaches to developing innovative solutions. 

Failure to tap into MAIs represents a missed opportunity for advancing 

environmental protection and stewardship. For example, MAIs in the 

Southeast and the Southwest could be leveraged for strategic projects 

targeting climate change impacts and adaptation, and engaging 

populations that are vulnerable to climate change. 

Benefits to EPA Stakeholder Communities 

 These capacity-building actions can help the public to address 

environmental health issues and to allow them to effectively 

participate in environmental health decision making and will 

increased confidence that concerns about the power dynamics 

between academic, government researchers, and communities will 

be taken seriously. 

 Actions undertaken by the Asthma Program will equip stakeholder 

communities and organizations to assess, organize and sustainably 

deploy community resources to reduce or eliminate exposure to 

asthma triggers, and improve health outcomes and the quality of life 

for people with asthma. The actions help support and strengthen the 

capacity of health care and environmental professionals, schools, and 

community-based organizations to develop comprehensive asthma 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 26

care strategies in partnership with impacted communities and to 

spread their results to accelerate improvements across the national 

asthma care landscape. 

 Through the partnership with ITEP, tribes are better able to fashion 

their own responses to environmental issues including climate 

change, and have a better understanding of how they can effectively 

participate in the environmental decision making of federal, state and 

local regulatory agencies. 

 Research through the proposed Centers of Excellence will be specially 

aimed at benefiting disadvantaged, undeserved, and environmentally 

overburdened communities or groups. 

 Requiring NCER fellowship applicants to consider and explain the 

environmental justice implications of their research will help develop 

a new generation of environmental scientists, engineers, and policy 

makers who are cognizant of environmental justice -related issues 

that can arise in research and thus adjust approaches accordingly to 

promote broad environmental protection. 

 Increasing the reach of the GRO program will promote research and 

training at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), which may have 

special expertise on environmental justice matters. 

 Through the Region 6 partnerships with University of Texas and Texas 

A&M Kingsville, EPA will increase knowledge about best approaches 

for community–university partnerships. 

Impact on EPA programs and activities 

 The Communities in Action initiative and the online Network, Asthma 

Community Network will surface important, field-tested community 

strategies that the Asthma Program will use to bolster the Agency’s 

national asthma education and outreach efforts. 

 When tribal perspectives are effectively communicated, EPA is more 

cognizant of Tribal issues and is able to make more informed and 

responsive decisions concerning its rules, programs and policies. As 

tribes take more responsibility for implementing air programs, EPA 

may be able to reduce some of its implementation efforts. 

 The proposed research-oriented activities will help institute program 

development and strategic institutional change within EPA. The goal 

is to increase democratization in the conduct of and community 

access to EPA/ORD research. The proposed activities will produce: (1) 

consistent and validated principles of community engagement in 

research for ORD and EPA programs; (2) improved science and 

research results that are more relevant to environmental problems 

faced by the public and more effectively translated to inform policy 

change and intervention; and (3) inclusion of environmental justice 

considerations as review criteria that serve as a model for other 

competition-based EPA programs. These results will promote a 

culture that considers environmental justice implications in all 

agencies funding actions and activities. 

 The process of increasing the reach of the GRO program will translate 

into stronger outreach to MSIs and highlight the critical role MSIs play 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 27

in the nation's research and development enterprise to solve pressing 

environmental protection challenges. 

 The intent of Region 6’s existing MOU’s are to: (1) improve the quality 

of environmental science and technical education; (2) increase the 

relevance of UTEP research projects to EPA’s environmental and 

public health mission; and (3) increase number of culturally diverse 

students electing to pursue graduate study and research careers in 

areas including science, engineering, and mathematics. It is expected 

that UTEP‘s capacity to develop environmental specialists for 

potential EPA employment will be significantly enhanced while 

important contributions will be made to EPA’s overall research and 

developmental programs. 

Timeframe 

 Support and grow an online community network of stakeholders that 

serves as a real time resource for mentoring and collaboration to 

support community asthma management programs (FY 2011 and 

ongoing). 

 Develop web-based tools that facilitate collaboration, problem 

solving, and learning among leaders of asthma programs (FY 2011 

and ongoing). 

 Facilitate knowledge transfer among stakeholders through EPA 

sponsorship of “pacing” events, including the National Asthma 

Forum, regional events and webinars for community-based asthma 

programs (FY 2011 and ongoing). 

 Train health care professionals to improve their ability to integrate 

the assessment of environmental factors into a comprehensive, 

culturally appropriate asthma care plan, based on national standards 

of care (FY 2011 and ongoing). 

 Continue funding for ITEP and the TAMS Center (ongoing). 

 Continue OAR involvement in developing ITEP’s curriculum and 

training, and oversight of the TAMS Center (ongoing). 

 Institute a pilot program on “meet the decision-makers” on 

environmental health and environmental justice that would 

accommodate up to 15 community leaders (FY 2013). 

 Issue joint RFA or other funding mechanism to collaborate with NIH 

National Institute Minority Health and Health Disparities to establish 

national research Centers of Excellence on Environment and Health 

Disparities (FY 2012). 

 Highlight Environmental Justice Research topics in the STAR 

Fellowships RFA (ongoing). 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 28

2.2 Community Engagement and Stakeholder Partnership 

Plan 

Community outreach and engagement plans are integrated into the 

individual science actions described above. The most significant science 

actions that will include community outreach and partnerships are ORD’s 

Sustainable and Health Communities Research Program, OSWER’s 

Community Engagement Initiative and the extramural research funding 

under consideration. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 29

3.0 DELIVERABLES 

Strategy 1: Apply integrated transdisciplinary and community-based 

participatory research approaches with a focus on addressing multimedia, cumulative impacts, and equity in environmental health and 

environmental conditions.

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 1.1: Establish 

an Integrated 

Transdisciplinary ORD 

Research Program on 

Environment and 

Community Health –

Sustainable and Healthy 

Communities Research 

Program.

 Research program framework 

developed (ORD - SHCRP 

Team).

 February 

2011

 Regional listening sessions to 

gather input from 

communities. Incorporate 

ideas and concerns from 

stakeholders and 

representatives from 

disproportionately impacted 

communities and populations 

(ORD - SHCRP Team).

 Spring 2011

 RFA to support Extramural 

research on Tribal 

Community Health (ORD –

NCER).

 FY 2012

 RFA to support Extramural 

research to support Centers 

of Excellence on Environment 

and Health Disparities (ORD 

– NCER).

 FY 2012

Activity 1.2: Develop 

technical guidance, 

analytic methods, tools 

and data to advance the 

integration of 

environmental justice in 

EPA decision making.

 Environmental Justice 

Technical Guide (ORD, OEJ, 

OP).

 FY 2013

 Community Cumulative 

Assessment Tool (CCAT) 

(ORD - NERL and OSA).

 Early FY2012

 Environmental Quality Index 

Tool (ORD – NHEERL).

 Long-term

 Regional Tools Summits 

(ORD - OSP and SHCRP 

Team).

 FY 2012 –

2013

 Environmental justice 

screening tools for air rules 

(OAR).

 FY 2011 –

2012

 Urban Atlas (ORD –

NHEERL).

 First phase 

complete FY13
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 30

Strategy 2: Incorporate perspectives from community-based 

organizations and community leaders into the EPA’s research agendas 

and engaging in collaborative partnerships on science and research to 

address environmental justice.

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 2.1: Establish 

Community Engagement 

Initiative (OSWER).

 Conduct training of OSWER 

staff on CBPR (OSWER).

 Ongoing

Activity 2.2: Re-engage 

National Environmental 

Justice Advisory 

Committee.

 Establish a research 

workgroup under NEJAC to 

advise ORD on the 

development of the 

Sustainable and Health 

Communities Research 

Program (ORD - NCER and 

OSP; OEJ).

 FY 2012

Activity 2.3: Support 

Community-Based 

Participatory Research.

 RFA to support extramural 

research on Tribal 

Community (ORD-NCER).

 FY 2012

 RFA to fund Extramural 

research to support Centers 

of Excellence on Environment 

and Health Disparities (ORD 

– NCER).

 FY 2012

 Regional listening sessions to 

gather input from 

communities. Incorporate 

ideas and concerns from 

stakeholders and 

representatives from 

disproportionately impacted 

communities and populations 

(ORD - Rick Linthurst and 

SHCRP Team).

 Spring 2011
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 31

Strategy 3: Leverage partnerships with other federal agencies on issues 

of research, policy and action to address environmental and health 

disparities. 

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 3.1: Join the 

Federal Collaboration on 

Health Disparities.

 Potential collaboration on 

research funding with sister 

federal agencies; better 

coordination of research 

needs on health disparities 

across federal government 

(ORD).

 Ongoing

Activity 3.2: Engage 

with President’s Task 

Force on Environmental 

Health Risks and Safety 

Risks to Children.

 Federal Action Plan to 

address asthma disparities 

(OCHP, ORD, OAR).

 FY 2011-

2015

Strategy 4: Build and strengthen the technical capacity of EPA scientists 

on conducting research and related science activities in partnership with 

impacted communities and translating research results to inform change.

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 4.1: Provide 

training to EPA 

scientists on CBPR.

 Survey ORD scientists’ needs 

and awareness about 

CBPR(ORD - OSP and 

NCER).

 FY 2012 –

2013

 Develop a training plan for 

ORD scientists (ORD - OSP 

and NCER).

 FY 2012 –

2013

 Collaborate with OSWER to 

modify and offer courses 

under the Community 

Involvement University (ORD 

and OSWER).

 FY 2012 –

2013

Activity 4.2: Build 

Social Science 

Capacity within ORD.

 Host scientist to science 

workshop on behavioral and 

social sciences (ORD-NCER).

 FY 2011 –

2012

 An ORD research agenda for 

behavioral and social sciences 

(ORD-NCER).

 FY 2012 –

2013

 Cooperative Agreement with a 

Social Science professional 

society (ORD- NCER).

 FY 2012 –

2013
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 32

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 4.3: Develop 

Environmental Justice 

Risk Management 

Training for OPP.

 Training module to ensure 

environmental justice and 

sensitive population 

considerations are fully 

incorporated and more clearly 

integrated throughout OPP risk 

management processes 

(OPP).

 By early 

FY2012

 100% of OPP risk assessors 

and managers properly trained 

on environmental justice in risk 

management (OPP).

 End of 

FY2012

Strategy 5: Build and strengthen technical capacity of community-based 

organizations and community environmental justice and health leaders to 

address environmental health disparities and environmental 

sustainability issues.

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 5.1: Build 

Community Capacity to 

Address Asthma 

Disparities.

 Establish an online community 

network available to 

stakeholders as a year-round 

resource for mentoring and 

collaboration and designed to 

support community asthma 

management programs (OAR).

 FY 2011 and 

ongoing

 Develop web-based tools that 

facilitate collaboration, problem 

solving, and learning among 

leaders of asthma programs 

(OAR).

 FY 2011 and 

ongoing

 Hosting the National Asthma 

Forum and Awards Program 

and regional pacing events for 

community-based programs 

(OAR).

 FY 2011 and 

ongoing

 Train health care 

professionals, to improve their 

ability to integrate the 

assessment of environmental 

factors into a comprehensive, 

culturally appropriate asthma 

care plan, based on national 

standards of care (OAR).

 FY 2011 and 

ongoing
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 33

ACTIVITIES DELIVERABLES MILESTONES

Activity 5.2: Build 

Tribal Community 

Capacity to Monitor Air 

Quality.

 Continue funding for ITEP and 

the TAMS Center (OAR).

 Ongoing

Activity 5.3: Increase 

Citizen Participation in 

Science and Decisions.

 Cooperative agreement to 

support a citizen scientist 

fellowship program – a meet 

the decision makers” on 

environmental health and 

environmental justice (ORDNCER).

 FY 2013

Activity 5.4: Establish 

Centers of Excellence 

on Environment and 

Health Disparities.

 RFA to support Extramural 

research to support Centers of 

Excellence on Environment 

and Health Disparities (ORD –

NCER)

 FY 2012

Activity 5.5: Build 

diverse environmental 

workforce and 

enhancing the 

capacities of MAI to 

engage in scientific 

research and workforce 

training.

 Highlight environmental justice 

research topics in the STAR 

Fellowships RFA. Include 

environmental justice 

considerations as review 

criteria under "Broader Societal 

Impacts" for all fellowship 

applications (ORD-NCR)

 Completed

and ongoing

 Support research through the 

FaST Program and provide 

university faculty and students 

to have hands-on research 

opportunities in DOE or EPA 

national laboratories (OSWER)

 Ongoing

 Establish a UniversityCommunity Partnerships 

initiative to provide technical 

assistance to local community 

groups and increase number of 

culturally diverse students 

electing to pursue graduate 

study and research careers 

(Region 6).

 To be 

determined 

(TBD)
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 34

4.0 REPORTING 

There is no overall reporting plan for the science activities at this time. 

However, program reporting may occur by the individual program offices 

responsible for each activity. For information, please contact Devon 

Payne-Sturges, 703-347-8055, Payne-Sturges.Devon@epa.gov; or Chris 

Saint, 202-564-9839, Saint.Chris@epa.gov. 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 35

APPENDIX 

Appendix A: References 

Brulle RJ and Pellow DN (2006). Environmental Justice: Human Health and 

Environmental Inequalities. Annual Review of Public Health. Vol 27: pp 

103-24. 

CSDH (2008). Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through 

action on the social determinants of health. Final Report of the 

Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Geneva, World Health 

Organization. 

Gee GC and Payne-Sturges DC. 2004. Environmental Health Disparities: A 

Framework Integrating Psychosocial and Environmental Concepts. 

Environmental Health Perspectives. VOLUME 11, NUMBER 17. pp1645 –

1653.

Habermann M and Gouveia N. 2008. Environmental Justice: an 

ecossocial health approach. Rev Saúde Pública 42(6). Pp 1 – 7.

Krieger N. 2001. Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: an 

ecosocial perspective. International Journal of Epidemiology. Vol 30: pp 

668- 677. 

Morello-Frosch RA. 2002. Discrimination and the political economy of 

environmental inequality. Environment and Planning C: Government and 

Policy. Volume 20, pages 477 – 496 

Morello-Frosch R. and Shenassa ED. 2006. The Environmental 

“Riskscape” and Social Inequality: Implications for Explaining Maternal 

and Child Health Disparities. Environmental Health Perspectives. 

VOLUME 114. NUMBER 8. Pp. 1150 – 1153. 

Norton B, Mcleroy K, Burdine J, Felix M, and Dorsey A. 2002. Community 

capacity: Concept, theory and methods, in DiClemente R, Crosby R, Kegler 

M, eds. Emerging Theories in Health Promotion Practice and Research. 

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Schulz AJ, Williams DR, Israel BA, Lempert LB. 2002. Racial and Spatial 

Relations as Fundamental Determinants of Health in Detroit. The Milbank 

Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4. Pp 677-707. 

Wakefield S.E.L. and Baxter J. 2010. Linking Health Inequality and 

Environmental Justice: Articulating a Precautionary Framework for 

Research and Action. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. Volume 3, Number 3. 

pp 95- 102.
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 36

Appendix B: Acronyms 

CARE Community Action for a Renewed Environment 

CBPR Community-Based Participatory Research 

CEI Community Engagement Initiative 

C-FEST Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening 

Tool 

CIC Community Involvement Coordinator 

CIPIB Community Involvement and Program Initiatives 

Branch 

CIU Community Involvement University 

CCAT Community Cumulative Assessment Tool 

DOE U.S. Department of Energy 

DOT U.S. Department of Transportation 

EO 12898 Executive Order 12898 

EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

FaST Faculty and Student Teams (Program) 

FCHDR Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities 

Research 

FY Fiscal Year 

GIS Geographic Information System 

GRO Greater Research Opportunities (fellowship) 

HBCU Historically Black Colleges and Universities 

HHS U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

HUD U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development 

ITEP Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals 

MAI Minority Academic Institutions 

MOU Memorandum of Understanding 

MSI Minority Serving Institution 

NCER National Center for Environmental Research 

NCMHD National Center on Minority Health and Health 

Disparities 

NEJAC National Environmental Justice Advisory 

Committee 

NERL National Exposure Research Laboratory 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 37

NGO Non-governmental organization 

NHEERL National Health and Environmental Effects 

Research Laboratory 

NIH National Institutes of Health 

NSF National Science Foundation 

OAR Office of Air and Radiation 

OCHP Office of Children’s Health Protection 

OCSPP Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution 

Prevention 

OP Office of Policy 

OPP Office of Pesticide Programs 

ORD Office of Research and Development 

OSA Office of the Science Advisor 

OSP Office of Science Policy 

OSWER Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response 

OW Office of Water 

RAF Risk Assessment Forum 

RARE Regional Applied Research Effort Program 

RFA Request for Applications 

SHCRP Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research 

Program 

STAR Science to Achieve Research (grant) 

TAMS Tribal Air Monitoring Support (Center) 

UTEP University of Texas El Paso 

 

 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 38

Appendix C: Recommendations from the Science of 

Disproportionate Impacts Analysis Symposium 

(Washington, DC, March 17-19, 2010) 

Symposium participants recommended several actions to reduce research 

or data gaps, overcome limitations in the theories and methods for 

conducting environmental research, particularly research supported by 

federal government, and limitations in practice of risk assessment. The 

science recommendations are described below. The first sentence is a 

summary statement meant to capture the main points of the individual 

recommendations from the Symposium that follow, including 

recommendations from the Environmental Justice-Caucus letter that was 

sent to Lisa Garcia, Senior Advisor to EPA Administrator for Environmental 

Justice. 

1. Create and institute a new scientific research approach to develop 

more holistic understanding of environment and health. One of the 

potential outcomes of this new framework is to inform environmental 

policies related to environmental justice and address environmental 

health disparities. Several recommendations from the symposium point 

to EPA to adopt a more holistic view of the environment and the impacts 

on population health: “*the+ EPA/ORD’s research agenda needs to be 

reframed, inequality and inequity needs to be a part of the discussion 

[and research]; there needs to be a shift to not only look at risks and 

exposures, but to consider root and fundamental causes, need to start 

where it (inequality) begins; [the] EPA likes to start the analysis and 

research at a level that does not address the history and root causes of 

health endpoints, risks and exposures; analyze the environment in a 

broader context, evaluate the interaction between the social and the 

physical environments; a better framework is needed for combining 

physical and psychosocial science in research and practice; use social 

determinants of health and health disparities research framework to 

conduct research on cumulative impacts/risks; encourage 

multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research; develop the 

science of interactive effects; social science disciplines like social 

epidemiology indicate that [the] EPA needs to look more at upstream 

factors – social processes that ultimately process the disparities in risks 

and health outcomes; develop measures for the social environment; test 

the validity of available vulnerability indices and tools; encourage 

multidisciplinary approach to research and analysis; address the role of 

institutionalized racism in poor community environmental health; 

encourage the consideration of environmental justice in land use 

planning; and conduct research with direct policy implications - not 

research for the sake of research.”

Further, the Environmental Justice-Caucus participants recommend that 

“*the+ EPA should develop a plan to ensure incorporation of the concept 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 39

of vulnerability, particularly its social and cultural aspects in the Agency’s 

research agendas” and “... in consultation with environmental justice 

constituencies, incorporate community principles in its funding guidelines 

for research in environmental health and planned and existing actions 

that adversely impact public health and quality of life.”

2. Integrate perspectives from decision makers such as community 

residents, community leaders, community-based NGOs and community 

health and environmental quality advocates in the development of 

EPA’s scientific research agendas as well as in data collection, conduct of 

exposure/risk assessments and risk management decisions. 

A common recommendation articulated in both the Environmental 

Justice-Caucus letter and through discussions the Symposium is the need 

to incorporate community perspectives in the development of EPA’s 

science/research agendas and in the conduct of exposure/risk 

assessments. Signatories to the Environmental Justice-Caucus letter 

recommend that “*the+ EPA and other publicly funded research require 

the expertise of environmental justice communities in the research 

design, implementation, recommendations and programmatic design that 

may result from the research” and “*the+ EPA should develop a plan to 

ensure incorporation of the concept of vulnerability, particularly its social 

and cultural aspects in the Agency’s research agendas.” Related 

recommendations from the Symposium state “include community 

representatives and perspectives in the design of studies/research; 

communities would like to be involved as [the] EPA sets its research 

priorities and agenda as well as the regulatory agenda and priorities; and 

there needs to be a research workgroup formed within the NEJAC.” 

Although the following recommendations from the Symposium stem 

from discussions on regulatory actions and capacity building, they also 

suggest that EPA/ORD needs to approach its research planning and its 

contributions to the development of Agency risk assessment guidance 

differently: “create effective mechanisms to listen to community 

concerns; develop culturally competent outreach processes. Hire local 

community folks with cultural expertise and community knowledge; and 

improve incorporation of exposure information for smaller communities 

and population groups in national risk assessments.”

3. Create EPA funding mechanisms for community-based participatory 

research (CBPR) and transdisciplinary research, with a specific focus on 

studies that will benefit disadvantaged, undeserved, and 

environmentally overburdened communities or groups. The 

Environmental Justice-Caucus letter states that “affected communities 

need to be involved in the conduct of research to insure that that results 

are disseminated in an effective and understandable manner and that 

research recommendations are reviewed by the community.” Similar 

recommendations were made at the Symposium including “support/fund 

community originated and owned research; increase support/funding for 

community based participatory research; support participation of 

communities as equal partners in research; include them as equal 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 40

partners in the co-production of knowledge; include community 

representatives and perspectives in the design of studies/research.”

Further, Environmental Justice-Caucus letter recommends that EPA 

should also “develop a set of guidelines for federal environmental health 

research that would require community participation with binding ethical 

and Title VI guidelines for federally funded researchers in [environmental 

justice+ communities and tribal nations.” This is consistent with 

comments raised at the symposium encouraging “federal funders of 

University researchers to address the unequal power dynamic that often 

arises between Universities and impacted communities that are subject 

of environmental and public health research.”

4. Collaborate with other federal government agencies on research, 

policy-making and other kinds of actions to address environmental 

health disparities. Many comments were made about the need to 

strengthen interagency efforts: “to address *environmental justice], need 

interagency collaboration; government approach to promoting and 

managing health is fragmented; agencies need to work together to 

formulate solutions for communities; other agencies should integrate 

[environmental justice] in all their activities.”

5. Enhance the capacities of Minority Academic Institutions (MAI) to 

engage in scientific research and workforce training. For instance, help 

MAI institutions to provide training opportunities for minority students in 

relevant scientific disciplines. Several statements were made at the 

Symposium that there was a lack of diversity in the academic institutions 

represented at the meeting and as presenters. HBCUs need to be 

involved in this new and expanded area of research on environmental 

health disparities. 

6. Develop and implement a multi-media approach to cumulative 

contamination exposures in environmental justice communities. 

Restructure risks assessment practice to better account for multistressors that cumulatively impact community and population health 

and recognize that the concepts that vulnerability and health disparities 

are interrelated. These recommendations from the Environmental 

Justice-Caucus letter echo many of the concerns and other 

recommendations raised at the Symposium on the topic of cumulative 

impacts. Comments from the Symposium include “communities see their 

environment as a whole not pieces; [the] EPA needs to address the issue 

of non-concordance between risk assessment results and community 

experience; vulnerability should be an integral part of cumulative risk 

assessment even it must be analyzed using qualitative measures; 

incorporate social vulnerabilities and cultural risks in risk assessments and 

cumulative risks/impact assessments; incorporate background risk in risk 

assessment; consider using qualitative approaches in risk assessment; 

adopt a quality of life approach; risk assessment should move away from 

individual lifestyles to one that considers the social context; focus on 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 41

health and well-being as opposed to risk, illness and death; [the] EPA 

should recognize that stressors in communities that are unaccounted for 

are not considered in risk assessments; adopt a systems approach to risk 

assessment and decision making; and [the] EPA should use information 

on cumulative impacts in all its decisions.”

7. Establish programs and provide federal government support to 

increase technical and scientific capacity in communities. This capacity 

building can help the public to address environmental health issues and 

to allow them to effectively participate in environmental health 

decision making. The Environmental Justice- – Caucus letter 

recommends that “grant/funding programs be expanded to provide 

support directly to [environmental justice] communities, [environmental 

justice] organizations and networks, Tribes and Native organizations to 

assess and act on *environmental justice+ issues.” Additionally Symposium 

participants advocated that “*the+ EPA include community-based 

organizations, leaders and residents in the co-production of knowledge 

and the scientific bases for environmental decision-making; make 

resources available to develop technical skills of community leaders on 

science and decisions; develop technical expertise within the 

communities; and commit resources to develop networks and 

centers/consortia with universities to support community groups with 

technical matters and participation in decision-making.” 

8. Develop analytic and assessment tools, and data collection 

approaches that could be used by community health advocates and 

environmental justice groups. Availability of appropriate tools and 

training on use of such tools would also help increase technical capacity 

of communities. For example recommendations include “work with local 

governments to provide access to data sources; influence their [local 

governments] data collection approaches; develop mapping tools that 

communities can use; encourage community engagement in the 

collection of data by government; explore the approach of using 

communities to collect data to overcome limitations of government data 

such as privacy issues and poor geospatial resolution; and develop zoning 

maps that are accessible to communities; regional councils of 

government can provide accurate city level data for community 

research.”

9. Build capacities and skills among EPA/ORD staff and scientists to 

conduct research and other science related activities in equal 

partnership with impacted communities. This step must include 

diversifying EPA’s technical and scientific expertise in the social 

sciences. Concomitant with efforts to increase technical capacity in 

communities, EPA/ORD needs to build up its capacity to work with 

communities in order for real progress to be made. Several 

recommendations from the Symposium address this issue: “train EPA 

staff on effective outreach and dialog with communities; develop capacity 

within the [A]gency; provide training for EPA risk assessors and managers 
Plan EJ 2014: Science Tools Development 42

on community engagement; consider using qualitative approaches in risk 

assessment; multi-disciplinary teams are needed to work on issues; 

encourage multidisciplinary teams in environmental health research; 

social science disciplines like social epidemiology indicate that EPA needs 

to look more at upstream factors – social processes that ultimately 

process the disparities in risks and health outcomes; explore approaches 

for interacting with communities that can build collective efficacy and 

social capital; support participation of communities as equal partners in 

research; include them as equal partners in the co-production of 

knowledge; and include community representatives and perspectives in 

the design of studies/research.”

10. EPA and other agencies should integrate environmental justice in all 

EPA activities, including policy making, regulatory actions, research and 

public outreach. An important place for intervention for environmental 

justice is regulation and rule-making. Example recommendations from 

the Symposium on the use of science and information to address 

environmental justice concerns in decision making include “develop 

measures of environmental health disparities to monitor temporal and 

spatial trends in disparities, and also whether environmental regulation is 

effective; stratify research data by race and income to better analyze 

disparate impacts; account for differences in the effect of lead on 

hypertension which is more pronounced in chronically stressed 

individuals in regulatory assessments and policies; develop tools for 

equity assessment; test the validity of available vulnerability indices and 

tools; base decisions on good science that passes the tests of reliability, 

repeatability and peer review; good data are legally defensible; and 

present policy choices and equity impacts to Administrator as a standard 

consideration in decision-making.”
For more information on Plan EJ 2014, visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of 

Environmental Justice website at: http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej/