Ogonnaya Dotson-Newman, Anhthu Hoang & Peggy Shepard.
Advocates and community residents agree – information connecting our health and the state of our environment is difficult to find. Government and private sector data sometimes conflict with our experience on the ground. WE ACT created this report card to provide a more inclusive evaluation of Northern Manhattan’s environmental health status in order to reconcile disagreement between different sources.
We chose to look at environmental health indicators from a variety of sources, such as government agencies and advocacy groups. We then contrasted Northern Manhattan’s performance on these indicators against all of NYC. We also researched government policies (and actions under consideration) that would affect specific indicators. We assigned a letter grade to each identified environmental concern based on environmental statistics, related health impact and current policies. When the data showed a high impact on a community (disparity), we identify policies and practices that would reduce the impact.