The Census Environmental Impacts Frame

John Voorheis, Jonathan Colmer, Kendall Houghton, Eva Lyubich, Mary Munro, Cameron Scalera and Jennifer Withrow

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2026, vol. 20, issue 2, 304 - 312

Abstract: Research in environmental economics often relies on aggregated place-based data, limiting our understanding of the interplay between economic activity and environmental conditions. To mitigate this, we introduce the Census Environmental Impacts Frame (EIF), a new microdata infrastructure linking individual-level socioeconomic data and residential histories with high-resolution estimates of environmental conditions for nearly all US residents over the past 2 decades. The EIF enables researchers to analyze the distribution of environmental conditions using individual-level rather than place-based data, track exposures over time, and assess their economic consequences in unprecedented detail. This article describes the EIF and summarizes opportunities for researchers.

Date: 2026
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