224: Mapping for Environmental Justice: A Powerful Tool to Build Capacity for Community Leadership

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can greatly enhance the utility and clarity of evaluation data in topics of environmental justice (EJ), climate justice, and public health. Mapping human-environment trends is a GIS skill highly sought by community organizations but underused by evaluators. This paper will explore the process and outcomes of using mapping in a Chicago-based evaluation. Exacerbated by the climate polycrisis, localized matters of EJ require urgent attention. During a participatory needs assessment with a small EJ community organization, several maps were created using ArcGIS Pro and publicly available data. The maps, published by the organization as part of an advocacy campaign, depicted geographics trends in relationships between disproportionate toxic burden and health. The organization reported that the maps improved their ability to understand the issue’s severity and educate the community accordingly, demonstrating the power of mapping for building organizational and community capacity to harness evaluation data when leading campaigns.