Resources: 

https://cdphe.colorado.gov/environmental-justice

Field Key

Technical Documentation

In 2021, a team from Colorado State University developed Colorado EnviroScreen in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). The tool pulls together 35 indicators to calculate a score identifying which communities face higher environmental, health, and socioeconomic burdens. By examining how these factors combine, the tool shows how communities are affected by multiple stressors simultaneously.

Community voices and expertise were vital to making Colorado EnviroScreen useful to communities disproportionately impacted by environmental health burdens. For the development of the first version of the tool, we engaged more than 200 people. Colorado EnviroScreen 2.0 development involved review teams from Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Public Health, along with feedback from hundreds of Coloradans. In November 2024, the Office of Environmental Justice released a second version based on user feedback with updated data and methods, a more user-friendly interface, and increased functionality.

Colorado EnviroScreen:

Identifies areas with current and past environmental inequities.

Highlights areas where disproportionately impacted communities have greater environmental health burdens.

Identifies geographic areas that meet the cumulative impacts criteria of the disproportionately impacted communities definition under Colorado law (C.R.S. § 24-4-109(2)(b)(II)). 

Colorado EnviroScreen is intended to:

Help users advocate for funding, interventions, and policy changes to avoid, lessen, and mitigate environmental health burdens.

Advance a healthy and sustainable Colorado where everyone has the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards.

Note: Census block group data not displayed for locations that contain Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations.