An Environmental Quality Index (EQI) for all counties in the United States for the time period 2000-2005 was developed which incorporated data from five environmental domains: air, water, land, built, and socio-demographic. The EQI was developed in four parts: domain identification; data source identification and review; variable construction; and data reduction using principal components analysis (PCA). The methods applied provide a reproducible approach that capitalizes almost exclusively on publically-available data sources. The primary goal in creating the EQI is to use it as a composite environmental indicator for research on human health. A series of peer reviewed manuscripts utilized the EQI in examining health outcomes. This dataset is not publicly accessible because: This series of papers are considered Human health research - not to be loaded onto ScienceHub. It can be accessed through the following means: The EQI data can be accessed at: https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/NHEERL/EQI. Format: EQI data, metadata, formats, and data dictionary all available at website.

This dataset is associated with the following publications: Gray, C., L. Messer, K. Rappazzo, J. Jagai, S. Grabich, and D. Lobdell. The association between physical inactivity and obesity is modified by five domains of environmental quality in U.S. adults: A cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE. Public Library of Science, San Francisco, CA, USA, 13(8): e0203301, (2018). Patel, A., J. Jagai, L. Messer, C. Gray, K. Rappazzo, S. DeflorioBarker, and D. Lobdell. Associations between environmental quality and infant mortality in the United States, 2000-2005. Archives of Public Health. BioMed Central Ltd, London, UK, 76(60): 1, (2018). Gray, C., D. Lobdell, K. Rappazzo, Y. Jian, J. Jagai, L. Messer, A. Patel, S. Deflorio-Barker, C. Lyttle, J. Solway, and A. Rzhetsky. Associations between environmental quality and adult asthma prevalence in medical claims data. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH. Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS, 166: 529-536, (2018).