Rural Areas May Miss Out On Public Support Due To Flawed Screening Tools
A study found that government screening tools used to identify disadvantaged communities can produce significantly different results, potentially affecting access to funding, with rural areas being disproportionately impacted
A recent study by the University of New Hampshire has raised concerns that government screening tools used to identify disadvantaged communities for public support may be flawed, potentially leaving rural areas overlooked for funding. The study compared four environmental justice screening tools and found large discrepancies in their designations of disadvantaged communities.
The researchers compared tools developed by the White House, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Transportation (DOT), as well as a tool developed by New York state. The results showed that the DOE tool designated about 18% of census tracts as disadvantaged nationally, while the White House and DOT tools designated about 35% of census tracts as disadvantaged.
In New York state, more than half of census tracts (51.3%) were identified as disadvantaged by at least one of the four tools. However, only about 14% of census tracts in the state were identified as disadvantaged by all four tools. This discrepancy is particularly concerning for rural areas, as the DOE tool did not designate any rural New York census tracts as disadvantaged.
## What the study found The study's findings suggest that the tools used to identify disadvantaged communities may not be effective in capturing the needs of rural areas. New York's own tool identified the greatest number of rural and suburban communities as disadvantaged, highlighting the importance of considering local context when designing screening tools.
## Why it matters The study's results have significant implications for access to funding and public support for disadvantaged communities. If rural areas are not being accurately identified as disadvantaged, they may miss out on crucial funding and resources. This could exacerbate existing disparities in resources and investment, particularly in areas where resources are already constrained.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of New Hampshire, Clarkson University, and Schneider Electric, and was published in Nature Communications. The researchers hope that their findings will inform the development of more effective screening tools that can accurately identify disadvantaged communities, including those in rural areas.
