The draft benefit assessment tool is used to help decide if a project benefits a priority population. Administering agencies, applicants, and/or funding recipients use the tool. There are different draft benefit assessment tools for different types of projects. Each tool is designed to be used together with the resources available on this page. View the full list of draft benefit assessment tools by project type.
The resources on this page are designed to help you use the draft benefit assessment tools.
Step 1: Identify Priority Populations
Use the maps and lookup tools below to identify if a project, activity, resource, etc., is located within a disadvantaged community or low-income community, or directly benefit residents of a low-income household.
Step 2: Data Tools
In the benefit assessment tool, Step 2 - Identify a Need, Option C, includes vetted data tools that can be used by any project to identify factors most impacting priority populations. Tools selected for inclusion on this page meet the following criteria:
Peer-reviewed and evidence-based
Provides census level data for California
Includes granular factors/indicators
Has defined thresholds for severity of impacts in comparison to other census tracts
Do you have a suggestion for another data tool for use in the benefit assessment tool? Submit your ideas for consideration using the form at the bottom of the page.
Directions: Refer to one of the following tools and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of the factors or indicators. Note that while each tool has defined thresholds for severity of impacts in comparison to other census tracts, thresholds may differ from tool to tool. Instructions for each tool provide more detail below.
As of December 2024
CalEnviroScreen 4.0
California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
About: A screening tool used to help identify communities disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution and with population characteristics that make them more sensitive to pollution.
How to use in Step 2: Confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of the individual factors that are most impacting an identified disadvantaged or low-income community (i.e., factors that score at or above the 75th percentile).
California Healthy Places Index
Public Health Alliance of Southern California
About: Data and policy platform created to advance health equity through open and accessible data. Users can evaluate project areas for vulnerabilities or ways projects can benefit priority populations.
How to use in Step 2: Look at the individual indicators that are most impacting an identified priority population (i.e., indicators that score 25 or below on the Healthy Place Index Percentile Ranking) and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of those indicators.
Transportation Equity Index
California Department of Transportation
About: Spatial screening tool designed to identify transportation burdened populations at the census block level. The EQI integrates transportation and socioeconomic indicators into three screens: Transportation-Based Priority Populations; Traffic Exposure; and Access to Destinations.
How to use in Step 2: Look at the individual indicators that are most impacting an identified priority population (i.e., indicators incorporated into at least one of the three screens) and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of those indicators.
EJScreen
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
About: EJScreen is EPA's environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and socioeconomic indicators. All indicators are publicly-available data.
How to use in Step 2: Look at the individual indicators that are most impacting an identified priority population (i.e., indicators that score above the 80th percentile compared to the rest of the state) and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of those indicators.
About: Interactive map with indicators of burdens in eight categories: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, and workforce development. The tool is designed to help identify disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. Federal agencies use this tool to identify disadvantaged communities
How to use in Step 2: Look at the indicators that that are most impacting an identified priority population (above the 90th percentile), and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of those indicators.
Equitable Transportation Community Explorer
U.S. Department of Transportation
About: Interactive web application designed to complement the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. Explore the cumulative burden communities experience, as a result of underinvestment in transportation, in the following five components: Transportation Insecurity, Climate and Disaster Risk Burden, Environmental Burden, Health Vulnerability, and Social Vulnerability.
How to use in Step 2: Look at the individual indicators that are most impacting an identified priority population (i.e., indicators that score above the 65th percentile compared to the rest of the state) and confirm that the project will reduce the impacts of at least one of those indicators.
Do you have a suggestion for another data tool for use in the Benefit Assessment Tool? Submit your ideas for consideration.