方法对比

	EJ Screening Index (EJScreen-Style)	Toxic Release Inventory Analysis
领域	Environmental Sociology	Environmental Sociology
方法族	MCDM	Process / pipeline
起源年份	2015	2004
提出者	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EJScreen team)	Michael Ash & T. Robert Fetter (using EPA TRI / RSEI)
类型	Composite percentile index combining environmental and demographic indicators	Toxicity-weighted spatial pipeline for distributional burden
开创性文献	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2024). EJScreen Technical Documentation for Version 2.3. Washington, DC: U.S. EPA.	Ash, M., & Fetter, T. R. (2004). Who Lives on the Wrong Side of the Environmental Tracks? Evidence from the EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Model. Social Science Quarterly, 85(2), 441-462.
别名	Environmental Justice Index, EJ Composite Indicator, EJScreen Index, Cumulative Environmental Burden Index	TRI Distributional Analysis, Toxic Burden Disparity Analysis, RSEI-Based Exposure Analysis, Industrial Pollution Equity Analysis
相关	4	4
摘要	An EJ screening index is a composite indicator that combines an environmental burden measure with a demographic vulnerability measure to flag communities that experience both high pollution and concentrations of low-income residents and people of color. The canonical implementation is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's EJScreen tool, whose technical documentation specifies how each environmental indicator is paired with a demographic index and converted into a nationwide percentile. The method is deliberately a screening device rather than a definitive measure: it is meant to surface places that warrant a closer look, not to settle exposure or causation. Each EJ index multiplies an environmental indicator by the gap between local and national demographic disadvantage, so that both high pollution and high vulnerability are required to score highly. Percentile ranking then makes otherwise incommensurable indicators comparable across the country. The result is a transparent, reproducible map of potential environmental justice concern.	Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) analysis uses mandatory facility-level reports of industrial chemical releases to measure how the burden of toxic pollution is distributed across social groups. Rather than counting raw pounds of emissions, which treat a ton of an innocuous solvent the same as a ton of a potent carcinogen, the modern approach weights releases by toxicity and models how they disperse to populations. Michael Ash and T. Robert Fetter's 2004 study showed how the EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) model, built on TRI, can be used to assign toxicity- and exposure-weighted pollution to neighborhoods and to test for disparities. They found consistent income and racial gradients: lower-income people and African Americans are exposed to more industrial air pollution, both across and within cities. The analysis combines the spatial-disparity logic of environmental justice with a chemical-specific account of harm. The result is a far more defensible burden measure than emission counts alone.