See limits of the data and how to interpret the data.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE LOCATOR Scorecard provides maps at the national, state, county, and census tract levels that illustrate estimated cancer risks from outdoor hazardous air pollution and the location of three types of pollution-generating facilities: manufacturing firms reporting to the Toxics Release Inventory, facilities emitting Criteria Air Pollutant and Superfund sites. You can see whether your home, workplace, or school is located in an area where estimated cancer risks are higher, comparable, or lower than in other communities. You can also see how many polluting facilities are located in your area of interest. Charts associated with the maps provide demographic information about an area, including the percent people of color, percent families living in poverty, and percent homeownership. You can also use Scorecard's mapper to access environmental data at the most local level (i.e., for each individual census tract in the U.S.). DISTRIBUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL BURDENS Scorecard uses easy-to-understand bar charts to illustrate which demographic group bears the burden of different pollution problems. Four problems are evaluated: releases of toxic chemicals, cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants, Superfund sites, and facilities emitting criteria air pollutants. Scorecard analyses the distribution of these problems using seven demographic categories: Race/Ethnicity, Income, Poverty, Childhood Poverty, Education, Home Ownership, and Job Classification. For example, Scorecard calculates whether whites or people of color live in areas with greater toxic chemical releases, and then graphically portrays the extent of the disparity, indicating which group is worse off. Further information about any environmental problems in an area can be found in Scorecard reports listed in the Links section. LOCATOR FOR UNEQUAL IMPACTS For any burden or combination of burdens that you select, or any group you select, this Locator will show you every county where that group of people experiences a higher impact than the rest of the population in the same county. COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Links are provided to several more detailed analyses of environmental justice issues in an area. DISTRIBUTION OF RISKS BY RACE, ETHNICITY AND INCOME Is race or income the driving factor accounting for disparate environmental burdens in your state? Scorecard examines the distribution of estimated cancer risks associated with outdoor hazardous air pollution to illustrate patterns of inequity by race/ethnicity and income. Scorecard calculates a population-weighted estimate of the average lifetime cancer risks imposed on each racial/income group by hazardous air pollutants. The Y-axis shows the estimated cancer risk per million persons, and the X-axis displays nine annual household income categories ranging from less than $5000 to over $100,000. Each line in the graph represents one of five racial/ethnic groups: Whites, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders and Latinos. Gaps between the lines indicate potential racial/ethnic disparities in cancer risk burdens. Slopes in the lines indicate potential differences in cancer risk across income categories. NOTE: Due to data limitations, these distribution calculations are only available at the state level. ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS Scorecard provides several measures of environmental hazards which can be used to compare counties within a state, including average cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants, the number of Criteria Air Pollutant facilities per square mile, the number of Superfund sites per square mile, and the number of Toxic Release Inventory facilities per square mile. State comparisons can be made on the basis of estimated cancer risks from outdoor hazardous air pollutants, and the percentage of total Toxic Release Inventory facilities, Criteria Air Pollutant facilities and Superfund sites hosted by a particular state. Environmental hazard indicators for counties and states can be compared to demographic profiles in order to assess which communities bear the largest burden of pollution sources. DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES Scorecard uses bar charts to illustrate the racial make-up of counties and states, and provide information about income, wealth, class, educational attainment, and citizenship. The demographic and socioeconomic information used for Scorecard's environmental justice analyses are all derived from the 1990 Census. The demographic profile of a county is compared to its state average, and states are compared to the US as a whole.