Using Spatial Analytics to Address Localized Environmental Harm
A How-To Guide For Cities
This was produced as part of the Community Data Health Initiative, generously funded from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Where you live profoundly impacts your health. Across U.S. cities, environmental hazards like air pollution and extreme heat disproportionately affect low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, shaped by historical disinvestment and discriminatory policies like redlining. Yet, neighborhood-level disparities often go unaddressed because environmental regulations typically focus on national or county scales, while local transportation and land use decisions have historically overlooked environmental and health impacts, partly due to the lack of localized data that is now available.
The Community Data Health Initiative (CDHI) launched in 2022 to help cities bridge that gap by using neighborhood scale data to address hyperlocal environmental harms and improve health in the most vulnerable communities. Given the central role of place in this work, geographic information system (GIS) is a vital tool, enabling cities to layer spatial data to track burden and health disparities to identify where interventions are most needed.
Last year, CDHI brought together the four pilot cities it supports—Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Baton Rouge, and Detroit—alongside experts from the GIS software company Esri to discuss how spatial data could inform the cities’ air pollution and heat mitigation efforts. What emerged from those discussions was that, too often, GIS was being used as a reference tool only at the initial problem assessment stage, rather than being embedded throughout the decision-making process. Most of the hurdles weren’t about a lack of spatial data or GIS tools, but rather about uncertainty over where to start, which data to prioritize and how to navigate challenges in data accessibility, and how to establish functional cross-agency systems with analytic capacity to carry out the work. Additionally, health data was often excluded from decision-making, even though improving health is a key goal of many environmental initiatives. To address this, CDHI designed a practical framework to help city teams working on environmental issues embed GIS into the policymaking process with a focus on equity and health, informed by conversations with its city partners, Esri, and academic institutions.
Section I highlights the value and potential for expanding the use of GIS, featuring success stories from various cities. Section II provides a step-by-step framework for implementing that expansion. Sections III and IV then apply the framework to two key focus areas of CDHI—air pollution and urban heat mitigation—assuming familiarity with these policy areas. While the examples center on air and heat, the framework is also adaptable to other environmental exposures, such as lead exposure or water contamination.
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About the Author
Nisha Kumar
Nisha Kumar, MPP (she/her) is the Program Manager for the Community Data Health Initiative (CDHI), leading CDHI for the Data-Smart City Solutions team at The Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. With partners at the Environmental Defense Fund and African American Mayors Association, she supports city leaders in using municipal levers to address health disparities brought on by environmental pollutants. She currently oversees projects on air pollution and extreme heat in Baltimore, the District of Columbia (DC), and Baton Rouge. She brings expertise in public health and has worked on Medicare policy at the federal level, Medicaid behavioral health policy with the state of California, and now local public health initiatives with CDHI. Kumar holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.
About the Author
Erica Ivins
Erica Ivins worked as the Project Coordinator for the Community Data Health Initiative at the Bloomberg Center for Cities. Before joining Data-Smart City Solutions, Erica examined some of the most pressing issues facing Americans today in a variety of research and advocacy roles. She has worked alongside community organizers, nonprofits, government officials, and UN representatives at the African American Redress Network to support racial justice efforts around the United States. She is dedicated to centering underserved communities in environmental and public health policy to advance equity from the ground up. Erica holds a bachelor’s in History and Archaeology from Hamilton College and a master’s in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University.
About the Author
Muen Zhang
Muen Zhang is a third-year Master in Landscape Architecture student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, with a strong focus on leveraging data analytics and information technologies to address complex urban and environmental challenges. Prior to pursuing her current studies, Zhang gained diverse experience across architecture, NGOs, and impact investing. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where she specialized in building technology.