Atlas library

Seventy years of public record: what was found, where it happened, what changed afterwards — alongside the documentation, research and resources behind the map. Every item is labelled with what kind of source it is. Nothing here is map data. Library material is reference context. It is stored and displayed separately from map data and is never used in any Atlas calculation.

This library offers public information and links to support resources. It does not provide medical, legal, mental-health, or crisis care. If you need urgent help, contact local emergency services or a qualified support provider.

Every entry links to the publisher's own page. The Atlas stores only titles, publishers, dates, links and short original summaries written for this library — no article text, audio, figures or paywalled material is copied or hosted here.

Browse by collection

Browse by region

Browse by topic

Browse by evidence type

Browse by state

270 items

Official government source
Environmental Quality Index — technical report (2006–2010)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development · 2020 · United States
EPA's method for summarising county environmental conditions across five domains — air, water, land, built environment and sociodemographic — using principal component analysis of published measures. Explains why counties are also compared within rural/urban strata.
The index describes conditions for 2006–2010. It is not a risk score and carries no causal claim about any health outcome.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Tap Water Database — search drinking-water testing results by ZIP code
Environmental Working Group · 2021 update · United States
A searchable non-government compilation of utility drinking-water testing results. Reports contaminants against EWG's own health guidelines, which are stricter than the federal legal limits a utility must meet.
Community reference only. Its values are not loaded into the Atlas and are never used in a comparison here. Legal compliance and EWG guideline exceedance are different things and must not be reported as the same finding.
Open source
Official government source
Consumer Confidence Reports — find the annual quality report for your own water system
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Every community water system must publish an annual water-quality report. This is the official route from a household address to the tests done on the water it actually receives.
Reports are published per water system, not per county. Private wells are not covered.
Open source
Official government source
Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule — nationwide testing for contaminants without a federal limit
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · UCMR 5, 2023–2025 · United States
Nationwide sampling programme in which public water systems test for contaminants that have no enforceable federal standard yet, including PFAS and lithium. Results are published per water system and sampling point.
Detection above a reporting level is not a legal violation, because these contaminants have no federal limit. Non-detects are recorded as non-detects and must never be read as an absence of any risk.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
FracTracker Alliance — oil and gas data, maps and state-by-state reporting
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
A nonprofit compilation and mapping of oil and gas infrastructure drawn from state regulator records, with state-level explainers on what each regulator does and does not publish.
Compiled from state regulator files with differing definitions. Context only; the Atlas maps regulator and federal compilations directly.
Open source
Official government source
CDC WONDER linked birth / infant death documentation
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NCHS) · Ongoing · United States
Official documentation for the linked birth and infant death files, including how infant deaths are matched to birth records, which geographies are released, and how small counts are suppressed.
Defines the denominators and suppression rules the Atlas must preserve.
Open source
Official government source
Sudden unexpected infant death: cause-of-death definitions
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Ongoing · United States
Explains how SIDS (R95), unknown or ill-defined cause (R99), and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed (W75) are certified and counted separately.
Open source
Official government source
EPA Superfund and National Priorities List data documentation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Describes how Superfund sites are listed, what site status values mean, and how site location data is published.
A site record is a regulatory record, not a measured exposure.
Open source
Official government source
EPA ECHO compliance and enforcement data documentation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Reference for facility compliance, hazardous-waste and discharge-permit records, including known limitations of self-reported data.
Open source
Official government source
Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) documentation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Explains how public water systems are registered and reported, and why a system's administrative point is not a tap or contamination location.
Open source
Official government source
EPA Air Quality System (AQS) monitor data documentation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Documentation for regulatory air-monitor measurements, monitor siting, and the sparse coverage of rural areas.
Open source
Official government source
Census TIGER/Line geography documentation
U.S. Census Bureau · Ongoing · United States
Reference for state, county and place boundary files and the FIPS/GEOID identifiers used to join data across sources.
Open source
University research
Yale School of Public Health — Environmental Health Sciences
Yale University · Ongoing · United States
University research department page covering environmental exposure science and maternal and child health research programmes.
Research programme page. Individual studies must be verified before citation.
Open source
University research
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — Environmental Health
Harvard University · Ongoing · United States
University department page covering air pollution, water contamination and population-health research methods.
Open source
Book
Petroleum-238: Big Oil's Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It
Justin Nobel · 2024 · United States
Investigative book reporting on radioactivity in oil and gas waste and the communities organising around it. Context and reporting, not a health-outcome dataset.
Not a health-outcome dataset. Not eligible for quantitative analysis.
Open source
Commentary / reference
PCIST.net community reference
PCIST.net · Ongoing · United States
Community-maintained reference material held for context only. It is disabled in map analytics and is not used in any calculation.
Context/reference only. Not eligible for quantitative analysis. Disabled by default in map analytics.
Open source
Official government source
West Virginia Department of Health — public health programmes
State of West Virginia · Ongoing · West Virginia
State health department information, including maternal and child health programmes and vital statistics.
Open source
Official government source
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
State of West Virginia · Ongoing · West Virginia
State environmental agency information covering permits, inspections and public environmental records.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support
Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support, Inc. · Ongoing · United States
Nonprofit offering peer support groups and bereavement resources for families after pregnancy or infant loss. Support information, not medical care.
Open source
Official government source
Safe infant sleep guidance
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development · Ongoing · United States
Government public-health guidance on infant sleep practices and reducing sleep-related infant death risk.
Open source
Commentary / reference
How to read area-level rates responsibly
Project Theodore · 2026 · United States
Atlas explainer on unstable small-area rates, suppression, the ecological fallacy, and why geographic co-occurrence is not causation.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
FracTracker Alliance
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
Nonprofit organisation that maps and documents oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure and publishes analyses with communities affected by it.
Nonprofit compilation, not a federal release. Linked for context; any figure must be traced back to the underlying state or federal record before use.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
FracTracker data and downloads
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
Documented datasets and downloads covering wells, pipelines, compressor stations, waste facilities and violations, compiled from state and federal records.
Candidate onboarding source. Terms of use, attribution and update cadence must be verified before any layer is released on the map.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
FracTracker national maps and analyses
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
Interactive maps and written analyses of drilling and petrochemical infrastructure at national, state and community scale.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
FracTracker Alliance — Open U.S. Data Centers Tracker
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
Open, continuously updated tracker of data-centre projects across the United States, compiled from permits, state and local filings, news reports and verified reporting. Each record carries status, reported power capacity, size class, expected online date, power and cooling source, project cost and source citations.
Community-reference compilation, not a federal registry. Status and announced megawatts are reported by the compiler; capacity, floor area, cost and completion dates appear only where a cited source reported them. Absence of a project is not evidence of absence.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
EWG Tap Water Database
Environmental Working Group · Ongoing · United States
Nonprofit compilation of utility-reported drinking-water testing results, searchable by public water system and ZIP code.
Uses nonprofit health guidelines that differ from federal legal limits. Compare definitions before drawing any conclusion.
Open source
Official government source
CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Network
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Ongoing · United States
Federal portal joining environmental measures with health indicators at state and county level, with published measure definitions.
Open source
Official government source
EPA EJScreen environmental and demographic indicators
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Screening indicators combining environmental and demographic data. Documentation states explicitly that it is a screening tool, not a measure of individual risk.
Open source
Official government source
ATSDR PFAS information and toxicological profiles
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry · Ongoing · United States
Federal toxicology and exposure reference for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, including what is and is not established about health effects.
Open source
Official government source
CDC birth defects data and statistics
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Ongoing · United States
Federal reference on birth-defect surveillance, case definitions and the limits of prevalence comparisons between states.
Open source
Official government source
NIEHS children's environmental health research
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · Ongoing · United States
Federal research institute overview of what is known about environmental exposures during pregnancy and early childhood.
Open source
Official government source
MSHA mine data retrieval system
U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration · Ongoing · United States
Official register of mine locations, operator records, inspections and violations used as the mining layer reference.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Hydraulic fracturing and infant health: new evidence from Pennsylvania
Currie, Greenstone & Meckel — Science Advances · 2017 · Pennsylvania
Population study reporting associations between residential proximity to hydraulic fracturing and lower birth weight, using administrative birth records.
Individual-level birth records with distance measures. The Atlas cannot reproduce this design: it holds area-level rates only.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado
McKenzie et al. — Environmental Health Perspectives · 2014 · Colorado
Study examining associations between counts of nearby gas wells and congenital heart defects and other birth outcomes in rural Colorado.
Proximity is a spatial proxy, not measured personal exposure.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Unconventional natural gas development and birth outcomes in Pennsylvania
Casey et al. — Epidemiology · 2016 · Pennsylvania
Cohort study of births near unconventional gas activity, reporting associations with preterm birth and physician-recorded high-risk pregnancy.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Perinatal outcomes and unconventional natural gas operations in southwest Pennsylvania
Stacy et al. — PLOS ONE · 2015 · Pennsylvania
Retrospective study of birth records in three counties examining associations with an index of nearby well activity.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Association of air pollution and heat exposure with preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth in the US
Bekkar et al. — JAMA Network Open · 2020 · United States
Systematic review of U.S. studies on air pollution and heat exposure during pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Superfund cleanups and infant health
Currie, Greenstone & Moretti — American Economic Review · 2011 · United States
Economic study comparing birth outcomes near Superfund sites before and after cleanup, using timing of remediation for comparison.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Elevated blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint drinking water crisis
Hanna-Attisha et al. — American Journal of Public Health · 2016 · Michigan
Study documenting increases in children's blood lead levels after a change in municipal water source, and the spatial pattern of those increases.
Open source
University research
Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health · Ongoing · United States
Long-running birth-cohort research centre studying prenatal and early-childhood environmental exposures.
Open source
University research
UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Research and Community Health
University of California, Berkeley · Ongoing · United States
University centre running community-partnered cohort studies on pesticide and chemical exposures in pregnancy and childhood.
Open source
University research
University of Pittsburgh — environmental epidemiology in shale regions
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health · Ongoing · Pennsylvania
University programme page for studies of health outcomes in communities near unconventional gas development in Appalachia.
Open source
Investigative journalism
Poison in the air — industrial hot spots reporting
ProPublica · 2021 · United States
Investigative series modelling industrial air emissions across the United States and reporting on affected communities.
Newsroom modelling of reported emissions. Journalism context, never an Atlas data layer.
Open source
Investigative journalism
Inside Climate News — fossil fuel and public health reporting
Inside Climate News · Ongoing · United States
Nonprofit newsroom covering energy infrastructure, pollution and the communities living beside it.
Open source
Podcast / audio
Environmental Health Chat (podcast)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · Ongoing · United States
Federal research institute podcast on environmental health science and community-engaged research. Free, publicly hosted episodes.
Linked to the publisher's own page. No audio is copied, hosted or transcribed by the Atlas.
Open source
Podcast / audio
Public Health On Call (podcast)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health · Ongoing · United States
University public-health podcast covering environmental exposures, maternal and child health and how to read health statistics.
Publisher-hosted link only.
Open source
Podcast / audio
Living on Earth (public radio programme and podcast)
PRX / Living on Earth · Ongoing · United States
Long-running environmental news programme with publicly available episodes on pollution, water and community health.
Open source
Podcast / audio
Drilled (investigative podcast)
Critical Frequency · Ongoing · United States
Investigative audio series on the fossil fuel industry and affected communities. Journalism context, not a data source.
Publisher-hosted link only. Not eligible for quantitative analysis.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Donora smog episode
U.S. National Institutes of Health / National Library of Medicine · 1948 · Donora, Pennsylvania
A temperature inversion trapped zinc-smelter and mill emissions over a river town for several days. Local physicians and health officials recorded a sharp rise in deaths and respiratory illness during the episode.
What changedWidely cited as the event that pushed federal air-pollution research in the United States and led to the first federal air pollution act in 1955.
Open source
Official government source
Air Pollution Control Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (history) · 1955 · United States
The first federal law on air pollution. It funded research and technical assistance but left control of emissions entirely to states and localities.
What changedEstablished federal air pollution research; superseded by the Clean Air Act framework from 1963 onward.
Open source
Official government source
Minamata disease identified
World Health Organization / published medical literature · 1956 · Minamata, Japan
Methylmercury discharged into a bay by a chemical plant accumulated in fish and shellfish. Clinicians documented severe neurological injury in adults and in infants exposed before birth.
What changedFirst large documented instance of prenatal methylmercury injury; a founding case for developmental toxicology and later international mercury controls.
Open source
Official government source
Thalidomide and limb-reduction birth defects
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (history) · 1961 · Europe, Australia, United States
A sedative marketed to pregnant women was linked by clinicians to a distinctive pattern of limb-reduction defects in newborns.
What changedLed directly to the 1962 Kefauver-Harris drug amendments in the United States and to the modern field of teratology.
Open source
Book
Silent Spring published
Rachel Carson — Houghton Mifflin · 1962 · United States
A book synthesising evidence on the ecological effects of persistent pesticides, especially DDT, for a general audience.
What changedCredited with catalysing the modern environmental movement and the review process that ended most U.S. DDT use in 1972.
Linked to the publisher-neutral federal regulatory history. No book text is stored here.
Open source
Official government source
Surgeon General's report on smoking and health
U.S. Surgeon General · 1964 · United States
A federal advisory committee reviewed the accumulated evidence and concluded that cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men.
What changedSet the template later used across environmental epidemiology for weighing consistency, strength, and biological plausibility before making a causal statement.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
The environment and disease: association or causation?
Austin Bradford Hill — Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine · 1965 · United Kingdom
The paper that set out the considerations still used to judge whether an observed association is likely to reflect causation.
What changedThese considerations underpin the Atlas rule that a map pattern is an observation, not a cause.
Open source
Official government source
Cuyahoga River fire
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (history) · 1969 · Cleveland, Ohio
Oil and industrial debris on the river surface caught fire — one of several such fires on the river across the century, but the one that drew national coverage.
What changedBecame a public symbol in the debate that produced the Clean Water Act of 1972.
Open source
Official government source
National Environmental Policy Act takes effect
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1970 · United States
Required federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major actions and to publish those assessments for public comment.
What changedCreated the environmental impact statement, still the main public record for large federal projects.
Open source
Official government source
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1970 · United States
Federal environmental responsibilities scattered across agencies were consolidated into a single regulator with research, standard-setting and enforcement roles.
What changedMost of the datasets the Atlas draws on — Superfund, TRI, ECHO, air monitoring — exist because of this agency and its later statutes.
Open source
Official government source
Clean Air Act of 1970
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1970 · United States
Established national ambient air quality standards for common pollutants and required states to write implementation plans to meet them.
What changedThe legal basis for the monitoring network behind the Atlas air layers.
Open source
Official government source
DDT cancelled for most U.S. uses
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1972 · United States
After hearings on persistence, bioaccumulation and ecological harm, most agricultural uses of DDT were cancelled.
What changedBody burdens of DDT and its metabolites in the U.S. population declined over subsequent decades, as tracked by national biomonitoring.
Open source
Official government source
Clean Water Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1972 · United States
Made it unlawful to discharge pollutants from a point source into navigable waters without a permit, and created the permit and reporting system behind facility discharge records.
What changedProduces the permit and violation records the Atlas surfaces through ECHO.
Open source
Official government source
Phase-down of lead in gasoline begins
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1973 · United States
Regulations began reducing the lead content of motor fuel, completing the removal of lead from on-road gasoline by 1996.
What changedNational surveys recorded a large decline in average children's blood lead levels over the same period — one of the most closely tracked exposure changes in U.S. public health.
Open source
Official government source
Safe Drinking Water Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1974 · United States
Authorised national standards for contaminants in public drinking water systems, with monitoring and public reporting requirements.
What changedCreated the system of violation records and consumer confidence reports used in the Atlas water layers.
Open source
Official government source
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1976 · United States
Set cradle-to-grave tracking for hazardous waste generation, transport, treatment, storage and disposal.
What changedThe hazardous-waste handler records shown as RCRA markers in the Atlas come from this law.
Open source
Official government source
Toxic Substances Control Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1976 · United States
Gave the federal government authority over industrial chemicals, but grandfathered in tens of thousands of chemicals already in commerce without new testing.
What changedThe grandfathering is a central reason many widely used compounds have limited human health data; partly addressed by the 2016 amendments.
Open source
Official government source
PCB manufacture banned in the United States
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1979 · United States
Production of polychlorinated biphenyls was prohibited after evidence of persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity.
What changedPCBs remain in sediments, older buildings and equipment; they are still a common contaminant of concern at cleanup sites decades later.
Open source
Official government source
Love Canal emergency declared
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1978 · Niagara Falls, New York
Residents living above a former chemical waste landfill documented seepage into basements and yards; state and federal authorities eventually relocated hundreds of families.
What changedThe direct trigger for the 1980 Superfund law and for the practice of treating resident-collected observations as part of the public record.
Open source
Official government source
Three Mile Island accident
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission · 1979 · Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania
A partial meltdown at a commercial reactor released a small quantity of radioactive gases; the accident prompted large-scale monitoring and follow-up studies of nearby residents.
What changedReshaped U.S. reactor regulation, emergency planning and the public reporting of nuclear incidents.
Open source
Official government source
Superfund (CERCLA) enacted
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1980 · United States
Created federal authority and a trust fund to investigate and clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites, and to recover costs from responsible parties.
What changedProduced the National Priorities List and the site inventory shown as purple markers in the Atlas.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Woburn childhood leukemia cluster investigation
Harvard School of Public Health / published literature · 1982 · Woburn, Massachusetts
Families identified an unusual number of childhood leukemia cases and pressed for investigation of contaminated municipal wells; academic and state studies followed.
What changedA landmark in community-initiated epidemiology and in the legal history of contamination claims; also a standard teaching case on the limits of cluster analysis.
Cited as historical context for how clusters are investigated. Cluster findings are observations, not proof of cause.
Open source
Official government source
Times Beach dioxin buyout
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1983 · Times Beach, Missouri
Waste oil containing dioxin had been sprayed on unpaved roads for dust control; the federal government bought out and evacuated the entire town.
What changedOne of the first whole-community relocations under Superfund; the site was later remediated and became a state park.
Open source
Official government source
Bhopal gas release
U.S. Chemical Safety Board / published literature · 1984 · Bhopal, India
A release of methyl isocyanate from a pesticide plant killed thousands of people living nearby within days and injured many more.
What changedDirectly prompted the U.S. community right-to-know law of 1986, which created the Toxics Release Inventory.
Open source
Official government source
Right-to-know law creates the Toxics Release Inventory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1986 · United States
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act required facilities to report their releases of listed chemicals to a public database.
What changedThe first routine public accounting of industrial releases by facility; the basis of the TRI layer in the Atlas.
Open source
Official government source
Chernobyl reactor accident
World Health Organization · 1986 · Pripyat, Ukraine (then USSR)
A reactor explosion and fire dispersed radioactive material across Europe; follow-up studies documented a marked rise in thyroid cancer among people exposed as children.
What changedEstablished childhood thyroid cancer as a sentinel outcome after radioiodine exposure and reshaped nuclear emergency planning worldwide.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice · 1987 · United States
A national report examining the location of commercial hazardous waste facilities relative to the racial composition of surrounding communities.
What changedWidely cited as the founding document of the environmental justice field in the United States.
Open source
Official government source
National biomonitoring shows falling children's blood lead
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / NHANES · 1988 · United States
National survey results published in the late 1980s documented a steep decline in average blood lead levels in the U.S. population following the fuel phase-down.
What changedDemonstrated that population exposure can be measured directly and tracked over time — the model for later biomonitoring of PFAS and other chemicals.
Open source
Official government source
Exxon Valdez oil spill
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · 1989 · Prince William Sound, Alaska
A tanker grounding released roughly eleven million gallons of crude oil into a coastal ecosystem, prompting decades of monitoring.
What changedLed to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and to long-term ecological damage assessment practice.
Open source
Official government source
Clean Air Act amendments
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1990 · United States
Added an acid rain trading programme, a list of 189 hazardous air pollutants, and stricter permitting for major sources.
What changedProduced the hazardous air pollutant reporting and permit records used in facility-level analysis today.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Folic acid shown to prevent neural tube defects
MRC Vitamin Study Research Group — The Lancet · 1991 · International
A randomised trial showed that folic acid supplementation before and in early pregnancy substantially reduced recurrence of neural tube defects.
What changedLed to U.S. mandatory folic acid fortification of enriched grain products in 1998 and a measured fall in neural tube defect rates.
Open source
Official government source
Back to Sleep campaign launched
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development · 1994 · United States
A national campaign advising that infants be placed on their backs to sleep, following evidence linking prone sleeping position to sudden infant death.
What changedU.S. SIDS rates fell sharply over the following decade. Later years show a shift in how sudden unexpected infant deaths are certified between SIDS, accidental suffocation and undetermined causes.
Certification practice changed over this period, so long time series of SIDS alone are not directly comparable across decades.
Open source
Official government source
Federal environmental justice executive order
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1994 · United States
Directed federal agencies to identify and address disproportionately high environmental and health effects on minority and low-income populations.
What changedThe policy basis for screening tools such as EJScreen and for later cumulative-impact analysis.
Open source
Official government source
First national fine particle (PM2.5) standard
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1997 · United States
After cohort studies linked fine particles to mortality, the EPA set the first ambient standard specifically for particles under 2.5 micrometres.
What changedCreated the nationwide PM2.5 monitoring network whose measurements appear in the Atlas air layers.
Open source
Official government source
Anniston PCB contamination becomes public
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry · 1990s · Anniston, Alabama
Decades of PCB manufacturing left elevated contamination in soil, waterways and residents' blood in neighbourhoods next to the plant.
What changedResulted in large settlements, federal health assessments and long-running community monitoring.
Open source
Official government source
Food Quality Protection Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 1996 · United States
Required pesticide tolerances to account explicitly for children's diets and for aggregate exposure across sources.
What changedFirst U.S. statute to require a child-specific safety factor in chemical risk assessment.
Open source
Official government source
Endocrine disruption enters public science
U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · 1996 · United States
Research and public writing in the mid-1990s described how some synthetic chemicals interfere with hormone systems at low doses, particularly during development.
What changedLed to a federal endocrine disruptor screening programme and to a continuing scientific debate about low-dose and timing-sensitive effects.
Open source
University research
Long-term child cohort studies scale up
National Institutes of Health · 2000s · United States
Federal investment in birth cohorts, later consolidated into the ECHO programme, began following children from pregnancy onward with repeated exposure and outcome measurement.
What changedProvides the individual-level evidence that ecological maps such as this one cannot produce on their own.
Open source
Official government source
World Trade Center dust exposure and the health registry
New York City Department of Health / CDC · 2001 · New York, New York
Collapse and fires released a complex dust of pulverised building material; responders and residents were enrolled in long-term health registries.
What changedProduced one of the largest exposure registries in the United States and a federal health programme for affected people.
Open source
Official government source
First National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · 2001 · United States
The CDC began publishing measured concentrations of dozens, later hundreds, of chemicals in blood and urine from a national sample.
What changedShifted the national conversation from what is emitted to what is actually measurable in people's bodies.
Open source
Official government source
Libby asbestos public health emergency
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2002 · Libby, Montana
Vermiculite mining and processing exposed workers and townspeople to asbestiform fibres over decades; screening found widespread lung abnormalities.
What changedThe first and only public health emergency declared under Superfund, with a dedicated federal health screening programme.
Open source
Official government source
Energy Policy Act and the hydraulic fracturing exemption
U.S. Congress / EPA summary · 2005 · United States
The 2005 energy law exempted most hydraulic fracturing fluids from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act's underground injection control programme.
What changedShaped what chemical disclosure exists for fracturing operations, and why disclosure is largely handled by a state-and-industry registry rather than a federal one.
Open source
Official government source
Unconventional gas development scales across Appalachia and Texas
U.S. Energy Information Administration · 2008 · Appalachia, Texas, North Dakota
Horizontal drilling combined with high-volume hydraulic fracturing moved industrial-scale energy production into residential and agricultural landscapes.
What changedCreated a new category of near-home industrial exposure and an active research literature on birth outcomes near well pads.
Open source
Official government source
Kingston coal ash spill
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2008 · Roane County, Tennessee
A containment failure released over a billion gallons of coal ash slurry into rivers and onto land, the largest such release in U.S. history.
What changedLed to the first federal rule governing coal combustion residuals in 2015.
Open source
Official government source
Deepwater Horizon blowout
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · 2010 · Gulf of Mexico
An offshore well blowout killed eleven workers and released oil for months, followed by large-scale dispersant use and a long-term health study of response workers.
What changedProduced the GuLF STUDY cohort and major changes to offshore drilling oversight.
Open source
Official government source
Upper Big Branch mine disaster
Mine Safety and Health Administration · 2010 · Raleigh County, West Virginia
A coal dust explosion killed twenty-nine miners; the federal investigation found systematic ventilation and dust-control failures.
What changedDrove changes in mine dust rules and enforcement, and in public access to mine violation records.
Open source
Official government source
Fukushima Daiichi accident
World Health Organization · 2011 · Fukushima, Japan
An earthquake and tsunami caused reactor meltdowns and a radioactive release, followed by mass evacuation and extensive screening.
What changedReoriented global reactor safety review and produced detailed guidance on interpreting screening-detected thyroid findings.
Open source
Official government source
Elk River chemical spill
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry · 2014 · Charleston, West Virginia
A storage tank leaked a coal-processing chemical upstream of a regional water intake, leaving around 300,000 people unable to use tap water for days.
What changedExposed how little toxicity data existed for a chemical in bulk storage next to a drinking water source, and prompted state tank regulation.
Open source
Official government source
Flint water crisis begins
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services / published literature · 2014 · Flint, Michigan
A change in municipal water source without corrosion control caused lead to leach from service lines; pediatric researchers documented rising blood lead levels in children.
What changedPrompted national attention to lead service lines, federal funding for replacement, and a revision of the lead and copper rule.
Open source
Official government source
Aliso Canyon gas leak
California Air Resources Board · 2015 · Los Angeles County, California
A failed well casing at an underground gas storage field vented methane and odorants for nearly four months, prompting the temporary relocation of thousands of households.
What changedLed to new California storage-well integrity rules and long-term community health monitoring.
Open source
Official government source
Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2016 · United States
Amended TSCA to require safety reviews of existing chemicals, with explicit attention to susceptible populations including infants and pregnant women.
What changedBegan a slow programme of risk evaluations for chemicals long in commerce.
Open source
Official government source
First national PFAS drinking water health advisories
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2016 · United States
EPA issued lifetime health advisory levels for two long-chain PFAS compounds, prompting testing and public notification in many systems.
What changedSet off a decade of state-level standards, litigation, and eventually the 2024 federal drinking water limits.
Open source
Official government source
Camp Lejeune contaminated water findings
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry · 2017 · Onslow County, North Carolina
Federal studies documented decades of solvent contamination in base drinking water and examined cancer and birth outcomes among people who lived or worked there.
What changedLed to VA benefit presumptions and, in 2022, to a dedicated federal claims act.
Open source
Official government source
Camp Fire and urban wildfire smoke
California Air Resources Board · 2018 · Butte County, California
A wildfire that burned an entire town produced smoke containing combustion products from housing and vehicles, not only vegetation.
What changedMarked the point at which wildfire smoke became a recognised routine air-quality exposure for tens of millions of people annually.
Open source
Official government source
Federal lead service line inventories required
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2021 · United States
Revisions to the lead and copper rule required water systems to inventory their service line materials and publish the results.
What changedFor the first time, communities can see, system by system, where lead pipes are believed to remain.
Open source
Official government source
Jackson drinking water system failure
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2022 · Jackson, Mississippi
Flooding overwhelmed an already fragile treatment plant, leaving a city without reliable safe water for weeks after years of accumulated violations.
What changedPlaced the system under federal oversight and became a reference case for infrastructure neglect.
Open source
Official government source
East Palestine train derailment and vinyl chloride burn
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2023 · East Palestine, Ohio
A freight derailment released hazardous chemicals; responders conducted a controlled burn of vinyl chloride, followed by extensive air, soil and water sampling.
What changedPrompted federal monitoring, a health assessment programme, and continuing debate about rail safety and chemical transport disclosure.
Open source
Official government source
First enforceable federal PFAS drinking water limits
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2024 · United States
EPA finalised national maximum contaminant levels for several PFAS compounds, with monitoring and public notification requirements for water systems.
What changedWater systems must test and report; results will progressively appear in the federal drinking water records the Atlas reads.
Open source
Official government source
PFOA and PFOS designated hazardous substances under Superfund
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2024 · United States
The designation allows federal cleanup authority and cost recovery at sites contaminated with two long-chain PFAS compounds.
What changedExpected to add PFAS-driven sites to the federal cleanup inventory over the coming years.
Open source
Official government source
PFAS are now detectable in most people tested
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / National Biomonitoring Program · Ongoing · United States
National biomonitoring finds per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the blood of the large majority of people sampled. These compounds were essentially absent from human blood before the mid-twentieth century.
What changedExposure is now near-universal, which changes what a 'control group' can mean in exposure research.
Open source
Official government source
Nationwide PFAS testing of public water systems
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — UCMR 5 · 2023–2026 · United States
For the first time, most large and many small public water systems are testing for a defined PFAS list on a common schedule, with results published as they arrive.
What changedCreates the first broadly comparable national picture of PFAS occurrence in treated drinking water.
Open source
Official government source
Microplastics and nanoplastics measured in human tissue
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · 2020s · United States
Analytical methods now detect plastic particles in blood, placenta, lung and other tissue. Health consequences are an open research question, not an established finding.
What changedA newly measurable exposure with, so far, no settled dose-response evidence in people.
Detection is not the same as demonstrated harm. Treat as an emerging research area.
Open source
Official government source
Wildfire smoke is offsetting decades of air quality improvement
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency / AirNow · 2020s · United States
Smoke episodes now drive a growing share of annual fine-particle exposure in parts of the West and, increasingly, the East, on days when regulated sources are unchanged.
What changedAnnual county averages can rise for reasons unrelated to local industry — a key caution when reading maps.
Open source
Official government source
Extreme heat as a recognised pregnancy exposure
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · 2020s · United States
Rising numbers of extreme heat days have made heat exposure during pregnancy an active area of study for preterm birth and low birth weight.
What changedHeat is now tracked alongside chemical exposures in maternal and infant health surveillance.
Open source
Official government source
How sudden infant deaths are certified has changed
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Ongoing · United States
Deaths once certified as SIDS are now often certified as accidental suffocation in bed or as cause undetermined. The combined SUID total is more stable than any single category.
What changedLong time series must use the combined SUID definition (R95, R99, W75) rather than SIDS alone. The Atlas follows that rule.
Open source
Official government source
U.S. infant mortality stopped its long decline
National Center for Health Statistics · 2022–2023 · United States
After decades of improvement, provisional and final national data show the infant mortality rate flat or slightly rising, with wide differences between states and groups.
What changedA national-level change that any local reading should be compared against before drawing conclusions.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Loss of local obstetric care
March of Dimes · 2020s · United States
Hospital obstetric unit closures have left many rural counties without any birthing facility, increasing travel distance to delivery care.
What changedAccess is a strong competing explanation for county differences in birth outcomes and must be considered alongside environmental factors.
Open source
Official government source
Rising neurodevelopmental diagnosis rates
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — ADDM Network · Ongoing · United States
Identified autism prevalence has risen substantially since surveillance began. Changes in case definition, screening and service access account for a large share of the increase; the size of any remaining change is debated.
What changedA clear example of why measured rates can move without underlying incidence moving the same amount.
Open source
Official government source
Early-onset cancers in adults under 50
National Cancer Institute · 2020s · United States
Incidence of several cancers, notably colorectal, has risen in younger adults across many countries. Causes are under investigation and not established.
What changedAn active research question in which environmental and dietary exposures are among many hypotheses.
Open source
Official government source
Industrial energy production next to homes and schools
U.S. Energy Information Administration / state setback rules · 2010s–2020s · United States
Unconventional development placed active well pads, compressor stations and truck routes within a few hundred metres of dwellings in many states — a spatial arrangement rare before 2008.
What changedPrompted state setback rules and a growing literature on birth outcomes by distance to active wells.
Open source
Official government source
Cumulative impact replaces one-chemical-at-a-time assessment
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2020s · United States
Regulators and researchers increasingly assess the combined burden of multiple pollutants plus social stressors, rather than evaluating each source in isolation.
What changedUnderlies screening tools like EJScreen and the Atlas practice of showing exposure alongside vulnerability.
Open source
Official government source
Satellites now detect individual methane plumes
NASA / EPA methane monitoring · 2020s · United States
Orbital instruments can attribute large methane releases to specific facilities within days, independent of operator self-reporting.
What changedIndependent verification of emissions is becoming possible where previously only self-reported data existed.
Open source
Official government source
Community-owned air sensors
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Air Sensor Toolbox · 2020s · United States
Inexpensive particle sensors let neighbourhoods collect their own continuous air data between the sparse regulatory monitors.
What changedAdds spatial detail that regulatory networks cannot provide, with lower accuracy that must be stated when the data are used.
Open source
Official government source
Military and airport firefighting foam sites
U.S. Department of Defense PFAS reporting · 2020s · United States
Systematic testing has identified hundreds of installations where fluorinated firefighting foam contaminated groundwater used by nearby communities.
What changedA distinct, newly mapped category of contamination that did not exist as a public dataset a decade ago.
Open source
Official government source
Private wells remain largely untested
U.S. Geological Survey · Ongoing · United States
Tens of millions of people draw water from private wells that no federal standard covers and no agency routinely samples.
What changedWater-quality maps systematically under-represent rural exposure; absence of a record is not evidence of safety.
Open source
Official government source
Small-county suppression is growing as rates fall
National Center for Health Statistics · Ongoing · United States
As rare outcomes become rarer, more county-year cells fall below publication thresholds and are withheld to protect confidentiality.
What changedBlank counties on a map are usually suppressed, not zero. The Atlas never infers a suppressed value.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Deficits in psychologic and classroom performance with elevated dentine lead
Needleman et al. — New England Journal of Medicine · 1979 · United States
Measured lead in shed baby teeth and related it to classroom performance in children without clinical lead poisoning.
What changedCentral to establishing that low-level lead exposure affects development, and to the fuel phase-down case.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
An association between air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities
Dockery et al. — New England Journal of Medicine · 1993 · United States
A prospective cohort across six cities found higher mortality where fine-particle concentrations were higher, after adjustment for smoking and other individual factors.
What changedThe evidence base for the first national PM2.5 standard in 1997.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Low-level environmental lead exposure and children's intellectual function
Lanphear et al. — Environmental Health Perspectives · 2005 · International context
A pooled analysis of international cohorts found measurable cognitive differences below the blood lead levels then considered acceptable.
What changedContributed to repeated lowering of the CDC blood lead reference value.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity
Grandjean and Landrigan — The Lancet Neurology · 2014 · International context
A review arguing that a growing list of industrial chemicals shows evidence of developmental neurotoxicity in humans.
What changedWidely cited framing of developmental exposure as a distinct regulatory problem.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
C8 Science Panel probable link reports
C8 Science Panel (court-ordered, Mid-Ohio Valley) · 2005–2013 · West Virginia and Ohio
An independent panel studied roughly 69,000 residents with PFOA-contaminated water and reported probable links with several conditions.
What changedOne of the largest community exposure studies ever conducted, and a foundation of subsequent PFAS regulation and litigation.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Elevated blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint water crisis
Hanna-Attisha et al. — American Journal of Public Health · 2016 · Michigan
Compared children's blood lead results before and after the water source change, by neighbourhood water lead levels.
What changedForced official acknowledgement of the crisis; a case study in clinician-led surveillance.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Hydraulic fracturing and infant health
Currie, Greenstone and Meckel — Science Advances · 2017 · Pennsylvania
Compared birth outcomes by mother's distance to drilling sites in Pennsylvania, using births before and after drilling began nearby.
What changedReported lower birth weight among births within about one kilometre of a site; effects diminished with distance.
Design compares nearby and more distant births; it does not establish a mechanism.
Open source
University research
University of Pittsburgh shale gas health studies
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health · 2023 · Pennsylvania
State-commissioned studies of childhood cancer, asthma and birth outcomes in southwestern Pennsylvania relative to unconventional gas activity.
What changedReported associations for asthma severity and one childhood cancer type, and no association for others; the authors emphasise that associations are not proof of cause.
Open source
Official government source
Trends in sudden unexpected infant death by cause
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Ongoing · United States
Official tracking of SIDS, accidental suffocation in bed, and undetermined causes, showing how the split between categories has shifted.
What changedThe reference the Atlas uses when interpreting SUID time series.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Safe sleep recommendations for infants
American Academy of Pediatrics · 2022 · United States
Current clinical guidance on infant sleep position, surface, and environment, with the evidence behind each recommendation.
What changedThe standard clinical reference for families and clinicians on reducing sleep-related infant death risk.
Open source
University research
ToxicDocs — internal industry documents archive
Columbia University and City University of New York · Ongoing · United States
A searchable archive of millions of pages of company documents released through litigation on lead, asbestos, silica, PCBs and other hazards.
What changedAllows the public to read what manufacturers knew, and when, in their own records.
Open source
Investigative journalism
Industrial air toxics mapping
ProPublica · 2021 · United States
A newsroom analysis modelled estimated cancer risk from industrial air emissions at fine spatial resolution using federal reporting data.
What changedDemonstrated the public value — and the interpretive limits — of modelled exposure surfaces.
Modelled estimates, not measurements. Useful for screening, not for individual risk.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Tap water contaminant database
Environmental Working Group · Ongoing · United States
A searchable compilation of utility testing results, presented alongside the organisation's own health guideline values.
What changedWidely used by residents; its guideline values are advocacy benchmarks, not legal standards.
Distinguish the underlying utility test results from the organisation's own benchmarks.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Oil and gas infrastructure mapping
FracTracker Alliance · Ongoing · United States
Compiles state well, pipeline and violation records into consistent national map layers with documented provenance.
What changedA primary independent reference for locating energy infrastructure relative to homes and schools.
Open source
Official government source
National water quality assessment
U.S. Geological Survey · Ongoing · United States
Long-running federal sampling of streams, rivers and groundwater, including contaminants not covered by drinking water rules.
What changedThe main independent check on utility-reported water quality.
Open source
Official government source
Toxicological profiles
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry · Ongoing · United States
Peer-reviewed summaries of what is known about the health effects, exposure routes and minimal risk levels for hundreds of substances.
What changedThe starting reference when a specific chemical is named at a site.
Open source
Official government source
IARC monographs on carcinogenic hazards
International Agency for Research on Cancer · Ongoing · International context
Independent expert evaluations classifying agents by the strength of evidence that they can cause cancer in humans.
What changedClassifies hazard — whether an agent can cause cancer — not the risk at any particular exposure level.
Hazard identification is distinct from risk at a given dose. Do not read a classification as a local risk estimate.
Open source
Official government source
How cancer clusters are investigated
National Cancer Institute · Ongoing · United States
Explains what qualifies as a cluster, why most reported clusters do not turn out to have an identifiable common cause, and how health departments respond.
What changedEssential context before interpreting any concentration of cases seen on a map.
Open source
Official government source
EJScreen environmental justice screening tool
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · Ongoing · United States
Combines environmental indicators with demographic data at block-group level for screening-level comparison.
What changedA screening tool, explicitly not a basis for concluding that a community is harmed.
Open source
University research
County Health Rankings and Roadmaps
University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute · Ongoing · United States
Annual county-level compilation of health outcomes and the social, economic and environmental factors measured alongside them.
What changedOne of the Atlas's verified county health inputs.
Open source
Investigative journalism
America's Radioactive Secret
Justin Nobel — Rolling Stone · 2020 · United States
Long-form investigation into oil and gas brine, the naturally occurring radioactive material it carries to the surface, and the workers who haul and spread it. Reports measurements taken from trucks, tanks and roads, and describes gaps in how the waste stream is classified and tracked.
What changedBrought radium in oilfield brine into national discussion and prompted state-level questions about brine spreading and disposal.
Journalism, not a study. Measurements described are field samples reported by the author and sources; they are not a population exposure estimate and no health outcome is attributed to them here.
Open source
Book
Petroleum-238: Big Oil's dangerous secret and the grassroots fight to stop it
Justin Nobel — Simon & Schuster / Atria · 2024 · United States
Book-length account of radioactivity in oilfield waste across producing regions, following workers, landowners and regulators, and tracing how the waste is handled from wellpad to landfill, injection well and road.
What changedExtends the 2020 reporting into a national account of oilfield waste handling and community response.
Reported narrative with documentary sourcing. Treat named measurements as reported values, not as verified monitoring data in this Atlas.
Open source
Investigative journalism
Reporting on brine spreading, landfill leachate and disposal pathways
Justin Nobel — DeSmog, Rolling Stone and other outlets · 2019–2024 · United States
A continuing body of reporting on where oil and gas liquid and solid waste ends up: road spreading for dust and ice control, landfill leachate that returns to treatment plants, and injection wells. Documents how testing requirements differ by state.
Article collection. Use for context and for locating primary permits and testing records, not as a measurement source.
Open source
University research
Residential proximity to oil and gas development and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia
Yale School of Public Health — Environmental Health Perspectives · 2022 · Pennsylvania
Registry-based case-control study in Pennsylvania comparing where children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia lived against matched controls, with attention to drinking-water pathways.
What changedReported an association between residence near wells and diagnosis odds; the authors describe limits of exposure assignment by distance.
Case-control design with distance-based exposure proxies. An association is not a demonstration that any particular well caused any particular case.
Open source
University research
Pennsylvania shale gas and health studies
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, with the Pennsylvania Department of Health · 2023 · Pennsylvania
State-commissioned set of studies examining childhood cancer, asthma severity and birth outcomes in relation to unconventional natural gas activity in southwestern Pennsylvania.
What changedReported associations for asthma severity and for lymphoma, and did not find an association for several other outcomes examined.
Mixed designs across three reports. Findings differ by outcome; read each report's own limitations section before comparing to Atlas maps.
Open source
University research
Oil and gas development and birth outcomes in Colorado
Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado · 2014–2023 · Colorado
A series of studies relating maternal residential proximity to well activity with congenital heart defects, preterm birth and birth weight, alongside modelled air-toxics exposure assessments.
What changedReported associations for some congenital anomalies at closer distances; later modelling work informed Colorado setback rules.
Registry-linked birth records with distance and dispersion-model exposures. Results vary by outcome and by exposure metric.
Open source
University research
Fine particulate air pollution and mortality in the Medicare population
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — New England Journal of Medicine · 2017 · United States
Nationwide cohort analysis linking modelled fine-particle and ozone exposure to mortality, including at concentrations below the national standard.
What changedWidely cited in reviews of the particulate standard; a reference point for why air exposure is examined at low concentrations.
Cohort study with modelled exposure surfaces. Applies to an older adult population; do not transfer its effect estimates to infants.
Open source
University research
Children's environmental health research programme
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai — Institute for Exposomic Research · Ongoing · United States
Hospital-based research on how chemical exposures in pregnancy and early childhood relate to development, using biomarkers such as baby teeth and blood measures rather than distance alone.
Biomarker-based cohorts. Measured internal dose is a different kind of evidence from the proximity measures shown on Atlas maps.
Open source
University research
Cincinnati Lead Study — childhood lead exposure followed into adulthood
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati · 1979–present · Ohio
One of the longest-running birth cohorts measuring blood lead from pregnancy onward and following participants for brain structure, behaviour and adult outcomes.
What changedReported associations between early lead exposure and later cognitive and behavioural measures across decades of follow-up.
Single-city prospective cohort. Strong on timing of exposure, limited in how far results generalise geographically.
Open source
University research
PFAS exposure in pregnancy and child growth and immune measures
Harvard Pilgrim / Boston Children's investigators — Project Viva cohort · 2018–2023 · Massachusetts
Prospective pregnancy cohort measuring per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in maternal blood and following children for growth, metabolic and vaccine-response measures.
Measured serum concentrations, not residential proximity. Associations are adjusted but observational.
Open source
University research
Community health near intensive industry — Johns Hopkins environmental epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health · 2015–2023 · Pennsylvania
Studies of asthma exacerbation, nasal and sinus symptoms and antibiotic-resistant infection near unconventional gas development and intensive livestock operations, using electronic health-record populations.
What changedReported associations between activity metrics and health-service events; authors emphasise unmeasured confounding.
Health-record cohorts with activity-weighted exposure metrics. Health-record populations are not general populations.
Open source
University research
CHAMACOS — pesticide exposure and child neurodevelopment
University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health · 1999–present · California
Farmworker-community birth cohort in the Salinas Valley measuring organophosphate metabolites in pregnancy and following children for cognition, attention and respiratory outcomes.
What changedReported associations between prenatal metabolite levels and later cognitive scores; contributed to pesticide regulatory review.
Community-based prospective cohort with biomarker exposure. Findings are specific to the exposures and population studied.
Open source
University research
Household exposure and breast cancer research
Silent Spring Institute — independent nonprofit research organisation · Ongoing · United States
Independent laboratory and community-science research measuring chemicals in household air, dust and drinking water, including PFAS testing programmes that return results to participants.
Independent research institute, peer-reviewed output. Community testing samples are self-selected and not population-representative.
Open source
Nonprofit / community resource
Environmental Health Project — clinical guidance for shale-region communities
Environmental Health Project (EHP), southwestern Pennsylvania · Ongoing · Pennsylvania
Independent public-health nonprofit that pairs air monitoring with clinical guidance for residents and clinicians in shale gas regions, and publishes plain-language summaries of the research literature.
Advocacy-adjacent nonprofit with clinical advisory input. Useful for interpretation; monitoring is local and episodic.
Open source
Official government source
Sister Study — environmental and genetic risk factors for breast cancer
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences · 2003–present · United States
Prospective cohort of more than 50,000 women with a family history of breast cancer, collecting residential history, personal-care product use and biological samples.
Volunteer cohort selected on family history; incidence rates are not generalisable to the whole population.
Open source
University research
Nurses' Health Study — long-run exposure and chronic disease
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital · 1976–present · United States
One of the largest and longest prospective investigations of women's health, including residential air pollution, light at night and occupational exposures alongside diet and reproductive history.
Occupational cohort of nurses. Rich confounder control, limited demographic diversity in early waves.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
C8 Science Panel — probable-link findings for PFOA in the mid-Ohio Valley
Independent C8 Science Panel, court-appointed · 2005–2013 · West Virginia and Ohio
Court-established independent panel that studied roughly 69,000 residents with contaminated drinking water and issued probable-link determinations for six conditions, including kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, preeclampsia and high cholesterol.
What changedThe determinations shaped litigation, medical monitoring and later federal PFAS assessment.
A probable-link determination is a legal-scientific standard defined in the settlement, not a general causal proof for other places or exposures.
Open source
Official government source
Great Smog of London
UK Met Office / published medical literature · 1952 · London, United Kingdom
Five days of coal smoke trapped under an inversion coincided with several thousand excess deaths, recorded in weekly mortality returns.
What changedProduced the UK Clean Air Act of 1956 and the modern practice of counting excess deaths during pollution episodes.
Open source
Official government source
Seveso dioxin release
European Commission / published cohort studies · 1976 · Seveso, Italy
A reactor failure at a chemical plant released TCDD over a populated area. Residents were placed in exposure zones and followed for decades, including a women's health cohort.
What changedProduced the EU 'Seveso' directives on major industrial accident hazards and one of the best-characterised dioxin cohorts in the world.
Open source
University research
ALSPAC — Children of the 90s birth cohort
University of Bristol · 1991–present · Avon, United Kingdom
Around 14,000 pregnancies enrolled in the early 1990s, with repeated biological samples, exposure measures and health follow-up into adulthood for parents and children.
What changedA reference cohort for prenatal exposure research worldwide, and a model for the individual-level evidence that county maps cannot provide.
Open source
University research
MoBa — Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study
Norwegian Institute of Public Health · 1999–present · Norway
Over 100,000 pregnancies with biobanked samples, linked to national health and birth registries covering the whole population.
What changedRegistry linkage makes near-complete follow-up possible — a design that is difficult to replicate where health records are fragmented.
Open source
University research
Danish National Birth Cohort
Statens Serum Institut, Denmark · 1996–present · Denmark
About 100,000 pregnancies followed with interviews and blood samples, linked to the Danish civil and health registers.
What changedA core source for studies of prenatal chemical exposure and later child outcomes.
Open source
University research
Generation R study
Erasmus MC, Rotterdam · 2002–present · Rotterdam, Netherlands
An urban birth cohort with detailed imaging, growth and air-pollution exposure assessment from fetal life onward.
What changedA leading source on urban air pollution and child brain and lung development.
Open source
University research
INMA — Environment and Childhood project
INMA network, Spain · 2003–present · Spain
A multi-region Spanish birth cohort measuring pesticide, metal, phthalate and air-pollution exposure alongside child neurodevelopment.
What changedContributed heavily to European evidence on endocrine-disrupting chemicals in pregnancy.
Open source
University research
ESCAPE — European air pollution cohort collaboration
European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects · 2008–2014 · Europe
Standardised air-pollution exposure modelling applied across dozens of European cohorts, allowing pooled analysis of birth outcomes, lung function and mortality.
What changedShowed associations at concentrations below then-current EU limits, informing the later WHO guideline revision.
Open source
Official government source
REACH chemical regulation enters force
European Chemicals Agency · 2007 · European Union
Placed the burden on manufacturers to register substances and supply safety data before marketing them, with restriction and authorisation routes for substances of very high concern.
What changedA different default from the United States, where most chemicals in commerce before 1976 were grandfathered in without testing.
Open source
Official government source
Proposed EU-wide restriction on PFAS as a class
European Chemicals Agency · 2023 · European Union
Five national authorities proposed restricting around ten thousand PFAS substances together, rather than one compound at a time.
What changedIf adopted, the largest chemical restriction ever attempted, and a direct contrast with substance-by-substance US regulation.
Open source
Investigative journalism
The Forever Pollution Project
European investigative journalism consortium · 2023 · Europe
Newsrooms across seventeen countries assembled a continent-wide map of known and suspected PFAS contamination from public records and testing data.
What changedShowed that a public contamination map can be built by journalists where no regulator had assembled one.
Open source
Official government source
Veneto PFAS drinking water contamination
Regione Veneto health authority / published studies · 2013 · Veneto, Italy
PFAS from a chemical plant were found in groundwater serving well over a hundred thousand residents, followed by a regional biomonitoring and health surveillance programme.
What changedOne of Europe's largest PFAS exposure cohorts and a major criminal prosecution.
Open source
Official government source
Taranto steelworks and neighbourhood health studies
Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy · 2012 · Taranto, Italy
Health authorities examined mortality and childhood illness in districts immediately downwind of one of Europe's largest steel plants.
What changedLed to court-ordered emission controls and a continuing national argument about jobs and health.
Open source
Official government source
Air pollution recorded on a death certificate
UK coroner's inquest / UK Government response · 2020 · London, United Kingdom
An inquest into the death of a nine-year-old girl with severe asthma listed air pollution as a contributing cause — the first such ruling in the United Kingdom.
What changedPrompted UK legislation on air quality targets and a national duty to inform the public.
Open source
Official government source
Grenfell Tower fire and post-fire exposure monitoring
UK Health Security Agency · 2017 · London, United Kingdom
A residential tower fire released combustion products across a dense neighbourhood; soil, air and health screening followed for surrounding residents.
What changedEstablished a long-term health monitoring programme for a defined urban exposed population.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Belarus and Ukraine thyroid cancer follow-up after Chernobyl
National Cancer Institute / international collaborations · 1990s–present · Belarus and Ukraine
Cohorts of people exposed as children were screened for decades, establishing a dose–response relationship between radioiodine and thyroid cancer.
What changedThe clearest quantified radiation–childhood cancer relationship available, used in emergency planning worldwide.
Open source
Official government source
Aral Sea desiccation and dust-borne exposure
United Nations Environment Programme · 1960s–present · Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Irrigation diversion exposed a seabed laden with salts, pesticide residues and fertiliser, generating dust storms across surrounding communities.
What changedA case in which an engineered water change, not a factory, produced regional chemical exposure.
Open source
Official government source
Nordic health and birth registries
Nordic national statistics and health institutes · 1960s–present · Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland
Universal personal identifiers allow births, diagnoses, prescriptions, occupations and deaths to be linked across a whole population for decades.
What changedWhy so much definitive evidence on rare outcomes comes from countries with fewer than ten million people.
Open source
Official government source
European Environment Agency air quality reporting
European Environment Agency · Ongoing · Europe
Publishes comparable measured air quality across member states, with estimated health burden attributed to fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone.
What changedThe European counterpart to the US monitoring network, using compatible pollutants and methods.
Open source
Official government source
EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries
European Commission Joint Research Centre · 1979–present · Europe
A network of population-based birth defect registries using shared case definitions, enabling cross-country comparison and cluster detection.
What changedThe reason European birth-defect trends can be compared between countries; the United States has no equivalent unified registry.
Open source
Official government source
European human biomonitoring initiative
HBM4EU / PARC, European Commission · 2017–present · Europe
Harmonised measurement of chemicals in blood and urine across participating countries, comparable to the US national exposure report.
What changedAllows exposure levels to be compared between continents rather than only within one country.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Early European evidence on infant sleep position
Published literature, Netherlands and United Kingdom · 1987–1991 · Netherlands and United Kingdom
Dutch and British researchers reported large falls in sudden infant death after national advice against prone sleeping, several years before the US campaign.
What changedEuropean experience directly informed the US Back to Sleep campaign launched in 1994.
Linked to a search entry point rather than a single paper; individual citations pending review.
Open source
Official government source
European mercury phase-out
European Commission · 2017 · European Union
EU rules implementing the Minamata Convention restricted mercury in products, industry and dentistry, with attention to exposure in pregnancy.
What changedReduced a source of prenatal methylmercury exposure across the continent.
Open source
University research
Upper Silesia coal region health studies
Polish and international research groups · 1990s–present · Silesia, Poland
One of Europe's densest coal and heavy-industry regions, studied for particulate exposure, birth weight and childhood respiratory illness.
What changedProvides a European comparison for Appalachian coal-region questions, with different housing, heating and health-system context.
Open source
Official government source
Itai-itai disease and cadmium in rice
Japanese Ministry of the Environment / published literature · 1955–1968 · Jinzu River basin, Toyama, Japan
Cadmium from upstream mining accumulated in irrigation water and rice, producing severe bone and kidney disease, mainly among older women.
What changedOfficially recognised as pollution-caused disease in 1968; drove Japan's pollution victim compensation system.
Open source
Official government source
Yokkaichi asthma
Japanese Ministry of the Environment · 1960s · Yokkaichi, Japan
Sulphur dioxide from a petrochemical complex was associated with a marked rise in asthma among nearby residents, including children.
What changedOne of Japan's four recognised pollution diseases, and a driver of national emission standards.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Yusho and Yucheng rice oil poisonings
Published cohort literature, Japan and Taiwan · 1968 and 1979 · Japan and Taiwan
Cooking oil contaminated with PCBs and dioxin-like compounds exposed thousands of people; children born to exposed mothers were followed for decades.
What changedProvided rare direct human evidence on prenatal PCB exposure and later growth and development.
Open source
Official government source
Arsenic in Bangladesh and West Bengal groundwater
World Health Organization · 1990s–present · Bangladesh and West Bengal, India
Tube wells installed to avoid surface-water pathogens drew from aquifers with naturally high arsenic, exposing tens of millions of people over years.
What changedDescribed by WHO as the largest mass poisoning of a population in history; the source of most human dose–response evidence on arsenic.
A key cautionary case: the intervention that removed one hazard introduced another. Relevant to US private-well arsenic.
Open source
University research
Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study
Columbia University · 2000–present · Araihazar, Bangladesh
A cohort of tens of thousands of adults with individual well-water arsenic measurements followed for skin lesions, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
What changedSupplies the individual-level exposure–response curves used in arsenic standards worldwide.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
China air quality action plans and measured improvement
Published literature / Chinese national monitoring · 2013–present · China
A national programme cut fine-particle concentrations sharply in major cities within a decade, with monitored before-and-after data.
What changedOne of the few large natural experiments in which an entire population's air exposure fell quickly and was measured throughout.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Guiyu electronic waste processing and child lead levels
Published literature, Shantou University · 2000s–2010s · Guiyu, Guangdong, China
Informal dismantling and burning of imported electronics was associated with elevated blood lead and other metals in local children.
What changedContributed to international restrictions on e-waste export and to recognition of informal recycling as an exposure setting.
Open source
University research
Delhi and Indo-Gangetic plain air pollution
State of Global Air / Health Effects Institute · Ongoing · Northern India
Among the highest sustained fine-particle concentrations measured anywhere, combining vehicles, industry, crop-residue burning and household fuel.
What changedStudies there examine exposures far above US ranges, which both extends and complicates dose–response curves.
Open source
Official government source
Household air pollution from solid cooking fuel
World Health Organization · Ongoing · Asia, Africa, Latin America
Billions of people cook with wood, coal or dung indoors; the resulting exposure is linked to child pneumonia and low birth weight.
What changedThe single largest environmental exposure by population affected, and a reminder that indoor sources can exceed outdoor ones.
Open source
Official government source
Korean humidifier disinfectant lung injury
Korean Ministry of Environment / published literature · 2011 · South Korea
A biocide added to household humidifier water caused fatal lung injury, disproportionately in young children and pregnant women, before the cause was identified.
What changedLed to a national compensation scheme and to Korea's own chemical registration law modelled on REACH.
A case where a consumer product, not an industrial site, produced a clustered severe outcome — a scenario no facility map would reveal.
Open source
Official government source
Dioxin contamination at former airbases in Vietnam
U.S. Agency for International Development / Vietnamese authorities · 1961–present · Da Nang and Bien Hoa, Vietnam
Herbicide storage and handling left dioxin concentrated in soil and sediment at specific sites; remediation began decades later.
What changedLong-running debate over health effects in exposed populations and veterans; site cleanup is now a bilateral programme.
Claims about birth defects in exposed populations remain scientifically contested; this entry does not assert a causal finding.
Open source
Official government source
Fukushima thyroid screening and overdiagnosis debate
World Health Organization / Fukushima Health Management Survey · 2011–present · Fukushima, Japan
Mass ultrasound screening of children found many small thyroid abnormalities; experts disagree about how many would ever have caused illness.
What changedA leading example of screening-driven increases in measured disease that do not reflect a change in underlying risk.
Essential context for interpreting any rise in detected cases after intensified testing.
Open source
Official government source
Artisanal gold mining and mercury exposure
United Nations Environment Programme · 2000s–present · Indonesia, Philippines and beyond
Small-scale gold processing uses elemental mercury, exposing miners and nearby households, including pregnant women.
What changedThe largest single source of global mercury emissions, and a focus of the Minamata Convention.
Open source
Official government source
Minamata patient registry and long-term follow-up
Japanese Ministry of the Environment · 1956–present · Kumamoto, Japan
Decades of certification, compensation and clinical follow-up produced a documented record of congenital methylmercury injury.
What changedDirectly shaped fish consumption advice for pregnant women in the United States and elsewhere.
Open source
Official government source
Taiwan National Health Insurance research database
Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare · 1995–present · Taiwan
Near-universal insurance claims linked to birth and death registration allow population-wide environmental epidemiology on a single dataset.
What changedProduces large studies on air pollution and pregnancy outcomes that would require many separate data agreements in the United States.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Coal-region neural tube defect research in Shanxi
Published literature, Peking University and collaborators · 2000s · Shanxi, China
A region with unusually high neural tube defect rates was studied for coal-combustion byproducts in soil and placental tissue alongside folate status.
What changedIllustrates how nutrition and environmental exposure are examined together rather than as competing explanations.
Open source
Official government source
Japan Environment and Children's Study
Japanese Ministry of the Environment · 2011–present · Japan
A national birth cohort of around 100,000 pregnancies designed specifically to measure chemical exposure and child health to age 13.
What changedAsia's largest environment-focused birth cohort and a counterpart to the US ECHO programme.
Open source
Official government source
Kuwait oil well fires and exposure assessment
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs / published literature · 1991 · Kuwait
Hundreds of burning wells produced months of dense smoke; military and civilian exposure was modelled afterwards from satellite and monitoring data.
What changedOne of the most studied acute regional air-pollution episodes, and part of the long inquiry into Gulf War illnesses.
Open source
Official government source
Military burn pits and the PACT Act
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs · 2001–present · Iraq, Afghanistan and Southwest Asia
Open-air waste burning at deployment sites exposed service members to mixed combustion products; a registry and presumptive-condition list followed.
What changedThe 2022 PACT Act shifted the burden of proof toward presumption of exposure — a policy answer to unresolvable individual causation.
Useful model of how institutions act when exposure is documented but individual attribution is impossible.
Open source
Official government source
Reported birth defect increases in Basra and Fallujah
Published literature / World Health Organization · 2000s–2010s · Iraq
Local clinicians reported rises in congenital anomalies; a WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health survey found no clear elevation, and methods on both sides were disputed.
What changedA live example of conflicting findings in a setting where surveillance systems were damaged by conflict.
Included precisely because the evidence is contested; no conclusion should be drawn from it in either direction.
Open source
Official government source
Gas flaring in the Gulf and Middle East
World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership · Ongoing · Middle East
Satellite-detected flaring volumes are published by country and site, allowing consistent comparison with US flaring in Texas and North Dakota.
What changedThe same satellite method underlies flare detection in US oil basins, making cross-country comparison possible.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Informal lead smelting near Cairo
Published literature / Pure Earth pollution inventories · 1990s–present · Egypt
Battery recycling and secondary smelting in dense neighbourhoods produced elevated child blood lead concentrations.
What changedPart of the global evidence that used-battery recycling is now a leading childhood lead source.
Open source
Official government source
Water scarcity and drinking water quality across MENA
UNICEF / World Health Organization Joint Monitoring Programme · Ongoing · Middle East and North Africa
Standardised indicators track safely managed drinking water and sanitation coverage, including nitrate and salinity problems in stressed aquifers.
What changedProvides the comparative baseline against which US private-well problems can be sized.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Kabwe lead mining legacy
World Bank / published literature · 1900s–present · Kabwe, Zambia
A century of lead mining and smelting left contaminated soil across residential areas, with very high child blood lead measured decades after closure.
What changedShows that closed industrial sites can remain the dominant local exposure long after operations end.
Open source
Official government source
Ogoniland oil contamination assessment
United Nations Environment Programme · 2011 · Niger Delta, Nigeria
A field assessment documented hydrocarbon contamination of soil and drinking water in communities near decades of oil operations and spills.
What changedTriggered a long-running remediation programme and litigation in European courts.
Open source
University research
Witwatersrand gold tailings and community exposure
Published literature, South Africa · 2000s–present · Gauteng, South Africa
Settlements built beside gold tailings dams are studied for dust-borne uranium, arsenic and silica exposure.
What changedA close analogue to US questions about housing near legacy mining and mill tailings.
Open source
Official government source
La Oroya smelter and child lead levels
Published literature / Inter-American Court of Human Rights · 1990s–2024 · La Oroya, Peru
A polymetallic smelter was associated with very high childhood blood lead; in 2024 an international court found the state responsible for failing to protect residents.
What changedOne of the first binding human-rights rulings tying state inaction on industrial pollution to health harm.
Open source
Official government source
Mariana and Brumadinho tailings dam failures
Brazilian federal agencies / published literature · 2015 and 2019 · Minas Gerais, Brazil
Two mine waste dam collapses killed hundreds and contaminated entire river systems with metal-bearing sediment.
What changedReset global standards for tailings dam safety and monitoring, including at US operations.
Open source
Official government source
US–Mexico border industrial corridor studies
Border Environment Cooperation programmes / published literature · 1990s–present · US–Mexico border
Research on air, water and hazardous-waste movement across a border where regulation, monitoring and health systems change abruptly at a line on the map.
What changedDirect evidence that administrative boundaries, not exposure, often determine what data exists.
Open source
University research
Pesticide spraying near rural towns in Argentina
Published literature, Argentine universities · 2000s–present · Argentina
Communities surrounded by intensively sprayed soy fields have been studied for birth outcomes and reported illness, with buffer-zone litigation following.
What changedProduced court-ordered spraying buffers around schools and homes in several provinces.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Wittenoom blue asbestos cohort
Western Australian health authorities / published literature · 1943–present · Wittenoom, Australia
Workers and residents of a crocidolite mining town were followed for mesothelioma and lung cancer over more than half a century.
What changedOne of the longest continuous occupational and residential exposure cohorts anywhere, including childhood residents.
Open source
University research
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study
University of Otago · 1972–present · Dunedin, New Zealand
A birth cohort followed for over fifty years with very high retention, including analysis of childhood lead exposure and adult cognitive and health outcomes.
What changedAmong the strongest long-run evidence that childhood lead exposure tracks into adult outcomes.
Open source
Official government source
Pacific nuclear testing and dose reconstruction
U.S. Department of Energy / National Cancer Institute · 1946–1996 · Marshall Islands and French Polynesia
Atmospheric testing exposed island populations to fallout; later dose reconstruction estimated thyroid and other cancer risk.
What changedEstablished compensation programmes and much of the fallout dose methodology used for US downwinders.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
IARC Monographs on carcinogenic hazards
International Agency for Research on Cancer, WHO · 1971–present · Global
Expert working groups classify agents by strength of evidence that they can cause cancer, separating hazard identification from risk at a given exposure.
What changedThe standard reference for whether a substance can cause cancer at all — not whether it did so in one place.
Hazard classification is not a statement about any county's rate. Read alongside exposure data, never instead of it.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Global Burden of Disease study
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation · 1990–present · Global
Comparable estimates of mortality and disability by cause and risk factor for every country and many subnational units, updated in cycles.
What changedAllows US county figures to be placed in a world distribution rather than judged only against the national average.
Open source
Official government source
WHO global air quality guidelines
World Health Organization · 2021 · Global
Tightened recommended limits for fine particles and nitrogen dioxide based on evidence of effects at low concentrations.
What changedMost US counties that meet national standards still exceed these guideline values.
Open source
Official government source
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
United Nations Environment Programme · 2001 · Global
A treaty to eliminate or restrict chemicals that persist, bioaccumulate and travel long distances, with periodic additions including several PFAS.
What changedCreated the concept of global chemical listing, and the monitoring plan that shows these compounds in Arctic wildlife and human milk.
Open source
Official government source
Minamata Convention on Mercury
United Nations Environment Programme · 2013 · Global
Binds parties to control mercury supply, trade, emissions and use, named for the Japanese poisoning that made the hazard undeniable.
What changedA direct line from one community's documented harm to worldwide law.
Open source
Official government source
The Toxic Truth — childhood lead exposure worldwide
UNICEF and Pure Earth · 2020 · Global
Estimated that around one in three children worldwide has a blood lead level above the level that prompts action in the United States.
What changedReframed lead from a historical US problem to an ongoing global one, driven largely by battery recycling.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Lancet Commission on pollution and health
The Lancet · 2017, updated 2022 · Global
Estimated that pollution contributes to roughly one in six deaths worldwide, with the burden shifting from household to industrial and chemical sources.
What changedEstablished pollution as a mainstream global health topic rather than an environmental niche.
Open source
Official government source
Comparative infant mortality across high-income countries
OECD Health Statistics / World Health Organization · Ongoing · Global
Infant mortality in the United States is higher than in most comparable economies; part of the gap reflects genuine differences and part reflects how very preterm live births are registered.
What changedA reminder that even the most standard health indicator is shaped by recording rules before any exposure is considered.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
The exposome concept
Published literature, originating with Christopher Wild · 2005 · Global
Proposed studying the totality of environmental exposures across a lifetime with the same rigour as the genome, rather than one chemical at a time.
What changedNow the organising frame for large European and US exposure programmes, and the intellectual basis for combining layers on a map.
Open source
Peer-reviewed study
Bradford Hill considerations on association and causation
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine · 1965 · United Kingdom
Set out the considerations — strength, consistency, temporality, dose–response and others — used to judge whether an association might be causal.
What changedThe framework behind every statement in this Atlas that an association is not, by itself, evidence of cause.
Open source
Book
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson, Houghton Mifflin · 1962 · United States
The book that made chemical persistence a public question, arguing that pesticides move through food webs and accumulate far from where they are applied.
What changedWidely credited with launching the modern environmental movement and the case for a federal EPA.
Open source
Book
Our Stolen Future
Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers · 1996 · Global
Introduced endocrine disruption to a general audience: the argument that timing and hormonal activity can matter more than dose.
What changedReframed developmental exposure research and remains contested in parts of toxicology.
Open source
Book
Living Downstream
Sandra Steingraber · 1997 · United States
A biologist and cancer survivor reads her own county's industrial and agricultural record alongside cancer registry data.
What changedA model for reading public data about the place you live without overclaiming.
Open source
Book
A Civil Action
Jonathan Harr · 1995 · Massachusetts
The Woburn, Massachusetts childhood leukemia litigation, told through the legal effort to connect contaminated wells to a cluster of illnesses.
What changedThe clearest popular account of why courts and epidemiology answer different questions about the same facts.
Open source
Book
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation
Dan Fagin · 2013 · New Jersey
A Pulitzer-winning account of a New Jersey childhood cancer cluster investigation, including how the statistics were actually done.
What changedThe best available public explanation of what a cluster investigation can and cannot conclude.
Open source
Book
What the Eyes Don't See
Mona Hanna-Attisha · 2018 · Michigan
The pediatrician who used clinic blood lead records to demonstrate what Flint's water had done, and what happened when she published.
What changedShows how routinely collected health data became the evidence that forced official action.
Open source
Book
The Poisoned City
Anna Clark · 2018 · Michigan
Flint told as a story of infrastructure, austerity and governance rather than a single decision.
What changedExplains why old pipes and thin budgets are health variables.
Open source
Book
Exposure
Robert Bilott · 2019 · West Virginia and Ohio
The lawyer's account of the West Virginia PFOA litigation that produced the C8 Health Project, one of the largest exposure studies ever assembled.
What changedLitigation, not a regulator, created the dataset that established PFOA health links.
Open source
Book
Doubt Is Their Product
David Michaels, Oxford University Press · 2008 · United States
How manufactured scientific uncertainty has been used to delay regulation, written by a former head of OSHA.
What changedEssential for reading conflicting studies without assuming symmetry between them.
Open source
Book
Merchants of Doubt
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway · 2010 · United States
Traces how the same small group of scientists cast doubt on tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion and climate findings.
What changedA history of how scientific consensus is contested in public.
Open source
Book
Clearing the Air
Tim Smedley · 2019 · Global
A global tour of air pollution science and the cities that have measurably reduced it.
What changedUseful counterweight to the assumption that exposure levels are fixed.
Open source
Book
Invisible Women
Caroline Criado Perez · 2019 · Global
How default male data in safety, medicine and design produces systematic gaps in what gets measured for women.
What changedDirectly relevant to maternal and reproductive exposure data that was never collected.
Open source
Book
Data Feminism
Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein, MIT Press · 2020 · Global
On who is counted, who does the counting, and how missing data is itself a finding.
What changedA working ethic for any project that maps people.
Open source
Book
How to Lie with Maps
Mark Monmonier, University of Chicago Press · 1991, third edition 2018 · Global
Why classification breaks, colour ramps and area units change the story a map appears to tell.
What changedShould be read before drawing conclusions from any choropleth, including this Atlas.
Open source
Book
The Ghost Map
Steven Johnson · 2006 · United Kingdom
John Snow, the Broad Street pump and the birth of spatial epidemiology in 1854 London.
What changedThe origin story of mapping health outcomes against a suspected source.
Open source
Book
The Emperor of All Maladies
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2010 · Global
A biography of cancer, including the long argument over environmental versus other causes and how registries were built.
What changedBackground for reading any cancer incidence map carefully.
Open source
Book
Lead Wars
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, University of California Press · 2013 · United States
How lead poisoning was reframed from an industrial hazard to a housing problem, and what that shift did to policy.
What changedExplains why lead remains concentrated in specific neighbourhoods decades after bans.
Open source
Book
Deceit and Denial
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner · 2002 · United States
Industry documents on lead and vinyl chloride, showing what was known internally and when.
What changedSource material for the gap between internal knowledge and public disclosure.
Open source
Book
Dumping in Dixie
Robert D. Bullard · 1990 · United States
The founding text of environmental justice research, documenting where waste facilities were sited in the American South.
What changedWhy any honest analysis of industrial siting must consider demography, not only geology and transport.
Open source
Book
Wastelands
Corban Addison · 2022 · North Carolina
The North Carolina hog-farm nuisance trials, in which neighbours documented odour, flies and spray drift over years.
What changedShows what a community record built for court looks like.
Open source
Book
Refinery Town
Steve Early · 2017 · California
Richmond, California and the long civic fight over a refinery at the edge of town.
What changedA study of local politics as a health variable.
Open source
Book
Amity and Prosperity
Eliza Griswold · 2018 · Pennsylvania
A Pulitzer-winning account of one southwestern Pennsylvania family's attempt to document what happened to their water and air near shale gas operations.
What changedThe closest thing to a case study of the evidentiary problem this Atlas exists to address.
Open source
Book
Bringing Down the Mountains
Shirley Stewart Burns, West Virginia University Press · 2007 · West Virginia
Mountaintop removal mining and its effects on southern West Virginia communities.
What changedRegional grounding for the coal-country layers in the Atlas.
Open source
Book
The Heat Will Kill You First
Jeff Goodell · 2023 · Global
Heat as a direct physiological hazard, including risk in pregnancy and infancy.
What changedContext for the newest exposure layer in most health atlases.
Open source
Book
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: History and Science
Published academic literature and NIH historical accounts · Ongoing · United States
How SIDS was defined, how the Back to Sleep campaign was designed, and how classification changes altered the counted rate.
What changedNecessary before comparing SUID figures across decades, because the definition itself moved.
Open source
Book
Evicted
Matthew Desmond · 2016 · United States
Housing instability as a driver of health, documented through sustained fieldwork in Milwaukee.
What changedA reminder that housing quality and mobility sit between environment and outcome in every county.
Open source
Book
Grief and community after infant loss
Star Legacy Foundation and allied bereavement organisations · Ongoing · United States
Reading and support material for families after stillbirth, sudden infant death or infant loss.
What changedIncluded because people arrive at data like this carrying loss, not curiosity.
Open source
Book
Epidemiology: An Introduction
Kenneth J. Rothman, Oxford University Press · 2012 · Global
A short, readable introduction to rates, confounding, bias and why small-area comparisons are fragile.
What changedThe technical companion to everything the Atlas declines to claim.
Open source
Book
The Signal and the Noise
Nate Silver · 2012 · Global
On distinguishing genuine pattern from noise, and the cost of over-reading small samples.
What changedApplicable to every sparsely populated county on this map.
Open source
Book
Braiding Sweetgrass
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions · 2013 · United States
A botanist writes about reciprocity with land, offering a frame beyond hazard and compliance.
What changedIncluded for perspective on why places matter to the people who live in them.
Open source
Documentary / film
The Devil We Know
Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films · 2018 · Parkersburg, West Virginia and Washington County, Ohio
Documentary account of residents in the Ohio River Valley who traced contamination of their drinking water to PFOA used in Teflon manufacturing at a nearby plant, and of the litigation and health study that followed.
What changedWidely credited with bringing the C8 Science Panel findings and PFAS contamination to a general audience.
Documentary film. Context only; use the C8 Science Panel and EPA records for figures.
Open source
Documentary / film
Dark Waters
Directed by Todd Haynes, Focus Features · 2019 · West Virginia and Ohio
Dramatised feature based on attorney Robert Bilott's decade-long PFOA litigation against a chemical manufacturer in West Virginia and Ohio.
What changedA dramatisation, not a record; useful as an introduction to how the PFOA case was documented.
Dramatised feature film. Never citable as evidence.
Open source
Documentary / film
Gasland
Directed by Josh Fox, HBO Documentary Films · 2010 · Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas
First-person survey of households near hydraulic-fracturing operations across several states, and of their reported water and air complaints.
What changedContested by industry on specific claims; significant in making shale-gas development a national public debate.
Advocacy documentary. Context only; use state well registers and FracFocus for figures.
Open source
Documentary / film
A Civil Action
Directed by Steven Zaillian, Touchstone Pictures · 1998 · Woburn, Massachusetts
Dramatisation of the Woburn, Massachusetts childhood-leukaemia cluster litigation over trichloroethylene contamination of municipal wells.
What changedBased on Jonathan Harr's reported book; the underlying Woburn cluster is documented in public records.
Dramatised feature film. Never citable as evidence.
Open source
Documentary / film
Erin Brockovich
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Universal Pictures · 2000 · Hinkley, California
Dramatisation of the Hinkley, California case over hexavalent chromium in groundwater near a gas compressor station.
What changedPopularised community-led exposure investigation; scientific claims in the case remain debated.
Dramatised feature film. Never citable as evidence.
Open source
Documentary / film
Minamata
Directed by Andrew Levitas, Samuel Goldwyn Films · 2020 · Minamata, Japan
Dramatisation of W. Eugene Smith's photographic documentation of mercury poisoning caused by industrial discharge into Minamata Bay, including congenital cases.
What changedThe Minamata disease record is one of the most thoroughly documented industrial-exposure events worldwide.
Dramatised feature film. Use Japanese ministry records for figures.
Open source
Documentary / film
Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain
Directed by Ravi Kumar · 2014 · Bhopal, India
Dramatised account of the 1984 methyl isocyanate release at Bhopal, still the deadliest industrial chemical incident on record.
What changedLong-term birth-outcome and morbidity effects in Bhopal remain the subject of published research.
Dramatised feature film. Context only.
Open source
Documentary / film
Toxic Puzzle
Directed by Bo Landin, narrated by Harrison Ford · 2017 · Guam, Sweden, United States
Follows researchers investigating whether the cyanobacterial toxin BMAA, concentrated in some water bodies, contributes to neurodegenerative disease clusters.
What changedThe BMAA hypothesis is active research, not settled science; treat as an open question.
Documentary on an unsettled hypothesis. Never citable as evidence.
Open source
Documentary / film
Fenceline: A Company Town Divided
Slawomir Grunberg and Jane Greenberg, POV / PBS · 2002 · Norco, Louisiana
Documents residents of Diamond, Louisiana living against the fence line of a petrochemical complex, and their campaign for relocation.
What changedThe relocation was ultimately agreed; the corridor remains a focus of environmental-justice research.
Documentary. Context only; use EPA TRI and monitoring records for figures.
Open source
Documentary / film
Blue Vinyl
Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold, HBO · 2002 · Lake Charles, Louisiana
Traces the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride from a Louisiana plant to household siding, following vinyl chloride exposure among plant workers and neighbours.
What changedVinyl chloride is a recognised human carcinogen in official classifications.
Documentary. Context only.
Open source
Documentary / film
The Story of Plastic
Directed by Deia Schlosberg, Discovery · 2019 · United States, India, Philippines, Indonesia
Traces plastic from petrochemical feedstock through production, disposal and export, including communities near resin plants and waste sites.
What changedAdvocacy documentary; its factual claims about facility siting are traceable to public registers.
Advocacy documentary. Context only.
Open source
Documentary / film
Chernobyl
Created by Craig Mazin, HBO / Sky · 2019 · Pripyat and Chernobyl, Ukraine
Dramatised reconstruction of the 1986 reactor accident and the state response, including radiation exposure among responders and nearby residents.
What changedDramatised; UNSCEAR and WHO reports remain the authoritative record of measured exposure and health outcomes.
Dramatised series. Never citable as evidence.
Open source

See the map data source registry

Atlas library

Environmental Quality Index — technical report (2006–2010)

Tap Water Database — search drinking-water testing results by ZIP code

Consumer Confidence Reports — find the annual quality report for your own water system

Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule — nationwide testing for contaminants without a federal limit

FracTracker Alliance — oil and gas data, maps and state-by-state reporting

CDC WONDER linked birth / infant death documentation

Sudden unexpected infant death: cause-of-death definitions

EPA Superfund and National Priorities List data documentation

EPA ECHO compliance and enforcement data documentation

Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) documentation

EPA Air Quality System (AQS) monitor data documentation

Census TIGER/Line geography documentation

Yale School of Public Health — Environmental Health Sciences

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — Environmental Health

Petroleum-238: Big Oil's Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It

PCIST.net community reference

West Virginia Department of Health — public health programmes

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection

Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support

Safe infant sleep guidance

How to read area-level rates responsibly

FracTracker Alliance

FracTracker data and downloads

FracTracker national maps and analyses

FracTracker Alliance — Open U.S. Data Centers Tracker

EWG Tap Water Database

CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Network

EPA EJScreen environmental and demographic indicators

ATSDR PFAS information and toxicological profiles

CDC birth defects data and statistics

NIEHS children's environmental health research

MSHA mine data retrieval system

Hydraulic fracturing and infant health: new evidence from Pennsylvania

Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado

Unconventional natural gas development and birth outcomes in Pennsylvania

Perinatal outcomes and unconventional natural gas operations in southwest Pennsylvania

Association of air pollution and heat exposure with preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth in the US

Superfund cleanups and infant health

Elevated blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint drinking water crisis

Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health

UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Research and Community Health

University of Pittsburgh — environmental epidemiology in shale regions

Poison in the air — industrial hot spots reporting

Inside Climate News — fossil fuel and public health reporting

Environmental Health Chat (podcast)

Public Health On Call (podcast)

Living on Earth (public radio programme and podcast)

Drilled (investigative podcast)

Donora smog episode

Air Pollution Control Act

Minamata disease identified

Thalidomide and limb-reduction birth defects

Silent Spring published

Surgeon General's report on smoking and health

The environment and disease: association or causation?

Cuyahoga River fire

National Environmental Policy Act takes effect

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established

Clean Air Act of 1970

DDT cancelled for most U.S. uses

Clean Water Act

Phase-down of lead in gasoline begins

Safe Drinking Water Act

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

Toxic Substances Control Act

PCB manufacture banned in the United States

Love Canal emergency declared

Three Mile Island accident

Superfund (CERCLA) enacted

Woburn childhood leukemia cluster investigation

Times Beach dioxin buyout

Bhopal gas release

Right-to-know law creates the Toxics Release Inventory

Chernobyl reactor accident

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States

National biomonitoring shows falling children's blood lead

Exxon Valdez oil spill

Clean Air Act amendments

Folic acid shown to prevent neural tube defects