What

The Environmental & Health Data Analysis Trust (EDHAT) is an emerging effort to meet the critical data and analytical needs of state and local agencies, researchers, and communities related to environmental, health, and cumulative impacts analysis. Started in 2025 by research and policy experts including former EPA/EJScreen staff, EHDAT is working to build a modern platform that reflects both recent scientific and technological advancements and the new policy realities faced by environmental and health regulators, community groups, industry, and researchers. EHDAT will make a decisive impact by meeting needs in state, Tribal, and local decision contexts while building a strong and transformational foundation for future national policy.

How

Building tools for environmental and health analysis beyond the federal government will lead to more nimble decision-making capabilities, greater transparency and usability for communities, and a more distributed and stable platform that is not as vulnerable to changing national political conditions. To meet this moment, EHDAT will build a collaborative platform for environmental health and data analysis to be jointly developed and used by agencies, researchers, the public, and community organizations. The platform will be designed to enhance the rigor and transparency of decision-making through a non-partisan, evidence-based approach. It will be implemented with, complemented by, and refined by extensive input and feedback from the identified priority user communities.

Why

Amid emerging gaps in federal environmental, health, demographic, and climate data and tools, the ability of communities, regulators, and policymakers to make and advocate for science-based, health-protective decisions at every level has been degraded. This puts every American at greater risk, especially communities that already face the heaviest environmental health burdens. Rapid response data rescue efforts have restored partial access to copies of many tools as a stopgap, but even before the deep and broad losses of federal platforms and science personnel in 2025, there was already a need to improve upon the existing tools and methodologies to better serve user communities and the public interest. The present moment calls for an independent, forward-looking approach to reimagining, modernizing, and sharing these tools and datasets.

Our Goals

  • Increase the rigor and transparency of decision-making around public health, environmental health, and cumulative impacts.

  • Remediate existing environmental and pollution burden in the most vulnerable communities and avoid additional pollution.

  • Facilitate meaningful engagement with communities and community members, including through open and participatory science with built-in protections for community data privacy and control and Tribal data sovereignty.

  • Promote best practices and use of the best available science.

  • Enable coordination for the development of new data products.