Proximity Analysis of Public Schools and Major Sources of Pollution within Chicago, Illinois

This project aimed to quantify environmental inequities between different racial groups within the city of Chicago through conducting and improving upon the proximity analysis technique for hazard identification. Improvements were made upon commonly used methods for population selection and pollution identification. In addition to these improvements this work established clear guidelines for interpretation of statistical variation between proximities to sources of pollution amongst populations and introduced a new summary indicator, the Cumulative proximity burden CPB score, which was developed as a tool to be used in public participatory GIS settings to assist community organizations in communicating environmental disparities and in situations where stakeholders may have varied educational, and specialized backgrounds

Visualizing environmental justice issues in urban areas with a community input approach

According to environmental justice, environmental degradation and benefits should not be disproportionately shared between communities. Identifying disparities in the spatial distribution of environmental degradation is therefore a prerequisite for validating the state of environmental justice in a geographic region. Under ideal circumstances, environmental risk assessment is a preferred metric, but only when exposure levels have been quantified reliably after estimating the risk. In this study, we adopt a proximity burden metric caused by adjacent hazardous sources, allowing us to evaluate the environmental burden distribution and vulnerability to pollution sources. In close collaboration with a predominantly Latinx community in Chicago, we highlight the usefulness of our approach through a case study that shows how certain community areas in the city are likely to bear a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution caused by industrial roads

A Data Driven Approach for Prioritizing COVID-19 Vaccinations in the Midwestern United States: Prioritizing COVID-19 Vaccinations

Considering the potential for widespread adoption of social vulnerability indices (SVI) to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations, there is a need to carefully assess them, particularly for correspondence with outcomes (such as loss of life) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health Public Health GIS team developed a methodology for assessing and deriving vulnerability indices based on the premise that these indices are, in the final analysis, classifiers. Application of this methodology to several Midwestern states with a commonly used SVI indicates that by using only the SVI rankings there is risk of assigning a high priority to locations with the lowest mortality rates and low priority to locations with the highest mortality rates. Based on the findings, we propose using a two-dimensional approach to rationalize the distribution of vaccinations. This approach has the potential to account for areas with high vulnerability characteristics as well as to incorporate the areas that were hard hit by the pandemic

Transformation Data & Community Needs Report (Executive Summary)

The Transformation Data and Community Needs Reports detail the findings and methods for studies conducted to understand health outcomes and community needs in five of the most socially vulnerable areas in the State of Illinois

Transformation Data & Community Needs Report (South Chicago)

The Transformation Data and Community Needs Reports detail the findings and methods for studies conducted to understand health outcomes and community needs in five of the most socially vulnerable areas in the State of Illinois. South Chicago is the focus of this report

Transformation Data & Community Needs Report: East St. Louis Metro Area

The Transformation Data and Community Needs Reports detail the findings and methods for studies conducted to understand health outcomes and community needs in five of the most socially vulnerable areas in the State of Illinois. The East St. Louis Metropolitan Area is the focus of this report

Transformation Data & Community Needs Report (West Chicago)

The Transformation Data and Community Needs Reports detail the findings and methods for studies conducted to understand health outcomes and community needs in five of the most socially vulnerable areas in the State of Illinois. Chicago's West Side is the focus of this report

Transformation Data & Community Needs Report (South Cook)

The Transformation Data and Community Needs Reports detail the findings and methods for studies conducted to understand health outcomes and community needs in five of the most socially vulnerable areas in the State of Illinois. Southern Cook County is the focus of this report