Background Information

Commerce City-North Denver (CC-ND) experiences many environmental justice issues, including proximity to the VB/I-70 Superfund site and other legacy pollution sources, concentration of polluting industries, and intersecting high traffic roadways. It is a diverse community that has lived through industry changes, major highway construction, and the evolution of historic contamination sites. Many complex issues exist that perpetuate and contribute to these environmental justice and related health equity issues. The complexity of the issues are mirrored by the programmatic efforts within CDPHE, with many programs doing vital work in these communities. With this complexity comes a substantial barrier to transparency, coordination, and community trust building, as governmental data, information, and engagement opportunities are fragmented and challenging to understand or even identify. The result is a governmental system that is hard to understand or navigate, contributing to diminished trust with the community. 

What was CO Tracking’s role?

Colorado Tracking worked jointly with other CDPHE programs to develop an online hub for background information, data, and activities related to environmental health concerns of the Commerce City-North Denver community. To accomplish this task, Tracking worked with CDPHE partners to understand the environmental and health concerns of the community members through ongoing stakeholder engagement. Tracking identified relevant datasets based on the community input and began to tell the story of air quality, water quality, current and past polluters, lead poisoning, respiratory health, mental health, and certain cancers within the study area. Tracking developed two data-driven products: a data narrative and a data dashboard. These products were translated into Spanish given the community's demographic make-up and shared with community members for feedback. Tracking incorporated the feedback and officially launched the web hub with the bilingual data resources and ongoing community engagement information in November 2020. 

What product or output came from CO Tracking’s role?

The Tracking program developed bilingual tools to address community concerns about environmental health and solicited additional feedback from the community. Tracking developed two data-driven products: a data narrative created on ArcGIS Online StoryMaps, which walks readers through key findings and background information, as well as a data dashboard created in R for more intensive data exploration. These both addressed specific community concerns as well as other information that was relevant to the area. The tools have gone through multiple feedback and revision cycles.

What action or decision was taken to resolve the problem?

Colorado Tracking collaborated with a team of public health professionals, scientists, and educators from several department programs including APPLETREE, Colorado Cancer Registry, Water Quality Control Division, Air Pollution Control Division, Vital Statistics Unit, and Colorado Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program to create a storyboard and dashboard for the CC-ND area. This effort complimented a larger effort centered around improved community engagement with CC-ND.

These are tools for community awareness and public health education, and are a part of ongoing efforts to increase government transparency. They aim to support community conversations around projects such as the Suncor settlement Supplemental Environmental Projects, the Globeville/Elyria/Swansea Health Study, and others. They have been shared on social media and at community meetings.

What was the outcome of this action or decision?

The dashboard identified more fine particle pollution in CC-ND than in the state overall or than in other communities of similar socioeconomic demographics. The most significant emissions sources are industry and traffic. Adult asthma and COPD prevalence are similar compared to other parts of the state but the area consistently has higher emergency department visit rates for asthma and COPD than the rest of the state or demographically similar census tracts, suggesting community members may experience more severe asthma attacks or substandard health care interventions. Data also show people in CC-ND are less likely to have health insurance coverage and are slightly less likely to have had a medical check-up because of cost. Cancers commonly associated with air pollution were not different from the rest of the state.

Feedback is integrated into the ever-evolving design and outputs for both the narrative and dashboard. CDPHE is committed to increasing governmental trust and transparency within CC-ND communities. Implementation of these two tools incrementally advances these goals.

Quantify the impact or the resulting action (if any evidence)

The tools received formal feedback from 8 individuals and entities and received verbal feedback from existing community groups and key leaders throughout the development process. The tools garnered strong engagement in the first three months of being launched (within Q2) -- over 1,200 views of the data narrative and 42.5 "active hours" of data dashboard engagement.