County profile
Walla Walla County, Washington Community Health Profile
Environmental risk, disease burden, provider access, and SDOH scores for community health needs assessment and service line planning. Fused from EPA, CDC, CMS, and Census data into a single free view.
Opportunity Score
Env
27
−23 vs U.S. mean
Disease
33
−17 vs U.S. mean
Provider
30
−20 vs U.S. mean
SDOH
31
−19 vs U.S. mean
Specific health risk patterns
Walla Walla County, WA: 2 specific risk patterns triggered
Each pattern below combines a specific environmental exposure with a population that is more vulnerable to that exposure. When both are present at meaningful levels in Walla Walla County, the pattern triggers. These are the most concrete data points for documenting a significant health need in a Community Health Needs Assessment and for planning where services or community investment would land hardest.
Internally, we call these “Compound Signals.” Each is a versioned, weighted composite scored against the national distribution. The full formula and citations live on the methodology page.
91,644,085 lbs of TRI-reported industrial releases (3,799,721 lbs of carcinogens).
Industrial emissions exposure × Surrounding population
Defend this finding — full lineage to source data5 sources cited
Industrial BurdenWalla Walla County: 77/100 (elevated above the 70th-percentile threshold)
Walla Walla County: 77/100 (elevated above the 70th-percentile threshold)
TRI facility density × PFAS contamination × pesticide use × total provider access deficit. Captures cumulative industrial environmental load on the surrounding population.
Methodology. Combines three distinct industrial exposure modes (point-source releases, drinking-water contamination, pesticide use) with a generalist provider-access leg since industrial pollution health effects span multiple specialties. Methodology v1.8.0.
Threshold. Elevated when score ≥ 70th national percentile across all US counties evaluated for this signal
Peer set. All US counties evaluated for the signal (~3,222, less coverage gaps)
Components (4)
Number of EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting facilities in the county.
EPA — Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) via Envirofacts
Vintage: TRI 2023 reporting year · Refresh: Annual · Lag: 18 months
How it's measured. Count of facilities reporting any TRI-listed chemical release in the most recent reporting year. TRI thresholds (10K-25K lb manufacturing; 500 lb persistent-bioaccumulative) mean smaller polluters are excluded from this count.
Caveat. TRI is industrial self-report. Underreporting is documented for some sectors and chemicals; the count is a floor, not a ceiling.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties (zero-inflated; many rural counties = 0)
Composite 0–100 severity score for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination in the county's drinking water and environment.
EPA — UCMR5 (Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule) + ECHO
Vintage: UCMR5 sampling 2023–2025 · Refresh: Quarterly · Lag: 3–6 months
How it's measured. Composite score combining detection frequency, peak concentration relative to EPA Health Advisory Levels, and number of PFAS species detected from UCMR5 public water system sampling and ECHO enforcement records.
Caveat. UCMR5 only samples public water systems serving 3,300+ people; private well users in small or rural communities are not represented.
Coverage. Counties with at least one UCMR5-eligible PWS
422.7K kg/year
Total estimated agricultural pesticide use in the county for the year, in kilograms (EPest_HIGH conservative estimate).
USGS — Pesticide National Synthesis Project (PNSP)
Vintage: PNSP 2019 (preliminary; 2018 unavailable; 2020+ unreleased) · Refresh: Annual when published · Lag: 2–3 years (and the program is on medium-low update reliability)
How it's measured. USGS PNSP estimates county-level pesticide application from USDA Census of Agriculture acreage by crop, multiplied by crop-specific application rates from proprietary surveys. EPest_HIGH is the regional-pool imputation that's conservative against undercounting.
Caveat. PNSP funding was nearly cut in 2023 and the program now publishes irregularly. 2018 has no data; 2020+ is unreleased as of methodology v1.8.0. Use with the data-quality note shown on the platform.
Coverage. 3,054 of 3,222 US counties
Total provider access deficit20%
Inverted national percentile rank of total healthcare specialists per 100K, with a 50/50 adjacency adjustment.
Methodology. Same shape as the specialty-specific deficits. Used by Industrial Burden where the relevant access dimension isn't a single specialty (industrial pollution health effects span pulmonary, cardiovascular, oncologic, and developmental medicine).
Components (2)
All active healthcare specialists in the county, normalized to population.
CMS — NPPES — National Plan and Provider Enumeration System
Vintage: Current month · Refresh: Monthly · Lag: Same month
How it's measured. NPPES registry — all specialty taxonomy codes — geocoded to practice address, summed per county, divided by Census population estimate.
Caveat. NPPES is registration-time data, not practice attestation.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
All active healthcare specialists in the county, normalized to population.
CMS — NPPES — National Plan and Provider Enumeration System
Vintage: Current month · Refresh: Monthly · Lag: Same month
How it's measured. NPPES registry — all specialty taxonomy codes — geocoded to practice address, summed per county, divided by Census population estimate.
Caveat. NPPES is registration-time data, not practice attestation.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
Wildfire-attributable PM2.5 averaged 4.6 µg/m³ with 8 days above 55 µg/m³ in a county where 11.0% of adults have asthma and 6.0% have COPD.
Wildfire smoke exposure × Respiratory-vulnerable population
Defend this finding — full lineage to source data8 sources cited
Smoke BurdenWalla Walla County: 74/100 (elevated above the 70th-percentile threshold)
Walla Walla County: 74/100 (elevated above the 70th-percentile threshold)
Wildfire smoke exposure (acute + chronic) × respiratory-vulnerable population × pulmonology access deficit. The merged successor (methodology v1.8.0) to the legacy Wildfire Smoke Vulnerability + Wildfire-Attributable Burden signals.
Methodology. Six-component blend captures both acute exposure (active fires, recent AQI peak) and chronic exposure (wildfire-attributable PM2.5 annual mean and smoke-day count from Stanford Childs/Burke). Merging the two legacy signals avoids the cannibalization problem where they shared 2 of 4 components and both fired in the same fire-exposed counties. Saved cohort URLs that reference the legacy signals soft-redirect to this merged signal.
Threshold. Elevated when score ≥ 70th national percentile across all US counties evaluated for this signal
Peer set. CONUS counties only — Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Guam fall back to acute legs only
Evidence base
- · Childs ML et al. 'Daily local-level estimates of ambient wildfire smoke PM2.5 for the contiguous US.' Environmental Science & Technology 2022.
- · Burke M et al. 'The contribution of wildfire to PM2.5 trends in the USA.' Nature 2023.
- · Ma Y et al. 'Mortality attributable to PM2.5 from wildland fires in California from 2008 to 2018.' PNAS 2024 (~11,415 attributable deaths/year nationally).
Components (6)
Count of active wildfire incidents reported within a 200-kilometer radius of the county centroid.
NIFC — WFIGS — Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services
Vintage: Live (refreshed during fire season) · Refresh: Sub-daily during fire season
How it's measured. Geospatial proximity count of WFIGS incident points to the county geometric centroid. Captures the acute exposure window in the smoke burden composite.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
Highest daily Air Quality Index value recorded in the trailing 30-day window.
How it's measured. Maximum of the daily AQI values reported by AQS monitors in the county over the trailing 30-day window. A single bad day pushes this above 100; sustained smoke episodes push it above 150.
Coverage. Counties hosting an AQS monitor; ~2,400 of 3,222 US counties have at least one.
4.6 µg/m³
Annual mean concentration of PM2.5 specifically attributable to wildfire smoke, isolated from background and other anthropogenic sources.
Stanford / Harvard — Childs/Burke wildfire smoke PM2.5 — daily local-level estimates
Vintage: Annual rollup (most recent: see WildfireAttributable.year) · Refresh: Annual · Lag: 3–4 years
Source page →DOI: 10.7910/DVN/DJVMTV
How it's measured. Daily 10-km grid estimates of wildfire-attributable PM2.5 derived in Childs et al (Environmental Science & Technology 2022) using satellite smoke plumes, monitor data, and atmospheric chemistry models. Aggregated to county-year annual means by population-weighted overlay. Validated in Burke et al (Nature 2023).
Caveat. CONUS only — Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Guam have no Childs/Burke coverage and fall back to the acute legs of the smoke burden signal.
Coverage. CONUS counties only (~3,108 of 3,222)
8 days/year
Count of days in the year where wildfire-attributable PM2.5 exceeded 55 micrograms per cubic meter (the EPA AQI 'unhealthy for sensitive groups' threshold).
Stanford / Harvard — Childs/Burke wildfire smoke PM2.5 — daily local-level
Vintage: Annual rollup (most recent: see WildfireAttributable.year) · Refresh: Annual · Lag: 3–4 years
Source page →DOI: 10.7910/DVN/DJVMTV
How it's measured. Day count of the same Childs/Burke daily 10-km grid where the population-weighted county-day exceeds 55 µg/m³. Captures sustained smoke exposure that the annual mean smooths over.
Coverage. CONUS counties only (~3,108 of 3,222)
Asthma + COPD prevalence blend25%
60/40 dominant/secondary percentile blend of asthma and COPD prevalence — the higher-percentile condition gets 60%, the lower gets 40%.
Methodology. The dominant/secondary blend ensures counties with both conditions elevated score higher than those with only one — a cardiometabolic-style cluster signal that a max() or simple average would miss. Introduced in methodology v1.1.0 to replace the original max() rule across all multi-condition disease components.
Components (2)
11.0%
Percent of adults age 18+ self-reporting current asthma diagnosis.
CDC — PLACES — Local Data for Better Health
Vintage: PLACES 2022–2023 (BRFSS source year ≈ 2 years prior) · Refresh: Monthly (PLACES release cadence) · Lag: 1–2 years
How it's measured. PLACES applies multilevel small-area estimation to BRFSS adult survey responses, producing county-level prevalence estimates with model-based uncertainty intervals. Self-reported, not provider-confirmed.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
6.0%
Percent of adults age 18+ self-reporting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease diagnosis.
CDC — PLACES — Local Data for Better Health
Vintage: PLACES 2022–2023 · Refresh: Monthly · Lag: 1–2 years
How it's measured. PLACES small-area estimation from BRFSS self-report. Underestimates true prevalence by an unknown factor since many cases go undiagnosed in low-access areas.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
Pulmonology access deficit20%
Inverted national percentile rank of pulmonologists per 100K, with a 50/50 in-county/neighbor-county adjacency adjustment.
Methodology. Inversion turns 'fewer providers' into a higher deficit score (so the signal weights point the same direction as exposure). The 50/50 adjacency adjustment uses Census Bureau county-adjacency files to reduce false positives where a county borders a major medical center: a small county next to Houston shouldn't read as 'no pulmonology' just because the practice happens to sit across the county line.
Components (2)
4.8 providers / 100K
Active pulmonology specialists practicing in the county, normalized to population.
CMS — NPPES — National Plan and Provider Enumeration System
Vintage: Current month (NPPES is registration-time data) · Refresh: Monthly · Lag: Same month
How it's measured. NPPES registry filtered to active pulmonology taxonomy codes, geocoded to practice address, summed per county, divided by Census population estimate.
Caveat. NPPES is registration-time data, not practice attestation — providers may have moved or retired without updating their record. The 50/50 adjacency adjustment in the access deficit derivation reduces but does not eliminate this noise.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
4.8 providers / 100K
Active pulmonology specialists practicing in the county, normalized to population.
CMS — NPPES — National Plan and Provider Enumeration System
Vintage: Current month (NPPES is registration-time data) · Refresh: Monthly · Lag: Same month
How it's measured. NPPES registry filtered to active pulmonology taxonomy codes, geocoded to practice address, summed per county, divided by Census population estimate.
Caveat. NPPES is registration-time data, not practice attestation — providers may have moved or retired without updating their record. The 50/50 adjacency adjustment in the access deficit derivation reduces but does not eliminate this noise.
Coverage. All 3,222 US counties
8 signals evaluated. See all signal methodologies →
Where Walla Walla County stands
Health risks here sit near national averages
Walla Walla County, Washington sits near the middle of the national distribution on all four major health-risk areas. Pollution exposure, chronic disease rates, doctor access, and social and economic conditions are all within a typical range for U.S. counties — none stand out as the dominant concern. For comparison and trend purposes, this is the kind of community that helps anchor what a typical national profile looks like across all four dimensions.
Methodology: when three or more of the four major health-risk areas (pollution, chronic disease, doctor access, social and economic conditions) score above the 70th national percentile, we call the pattern “multi-pillar convergence.” The scoring approach and citations live on the methodology page.
Risk profile
Walla Walla County compared to Washington and the U.S. average
Four health-risk scores on a 0-100 scale, where 50 is the U.S. average. A higher score means that area is a stronger contributor to community health risk.
Environmental Risk (27), Disease Burden (33), Provider Gap (30), and SDOH Stress (31) are at or better than the U.S. average.
- Walla Walla County
- Washington state mean
- U.S. mean (50)
- Signal threshold (70)
Current Conditions
Today's air quality, fires, and weather alerts
Live operational data for Walla Walla County: real-time AQI from EPA AirNow, active fires from NIFC, and any National Weather Service advisories. Updated daily.
Environmental Factors
Air, water, and exposure indicators
Top environmental indicators for Walla Walla County with state and national benchmarks. Full profile covers 40+ metrics on the platform.
| Indicator | Walla Walla County | WA avg | US avg |
|---|---|---|---|
PM2.5 (annual mean) EPA AQS / EJSCREEN | 11.6 µg/m³ ▲ +21% vs WA | 9.6 | 7.4 |
Ozone EPA AQS / EJSCREEN | 54.8 ppb ▲ +7.7% vs WA | 50.9 | 57.1 |
Traffic Proximity EJSCREEN | 302,605 index ▼ -19% vs WA | 371,415 | 291,320 |
Days Above 95°F NOAA ACIS | 40 days/yr ▲ +106% vs WA | 19 | 25 |
Superfund Proximity EPA EJSCREEN | 0.01 score ▼ -95% vs WA | 0.19 | 0.16 |
Drinking Water Violations EPA EJSCREEN | 28.61 score ▲ +1105% vs WA | 2.38 | 3.39 |
Wildfire-Attributable Air Quality
Smoke PM2.5 the EPA doesn't count
Stanford peer-reviewed wildfire-attributable PM2.5 for Walla Walla County. The EPA classifies wildfire smoke as "exceptional events" and excludes it from official AQS monitoring; Childs/Burke fills that gap with daily county-level data.
Source: Childs et al, Environmental Science & Technology 2022 (Harvard Dataverse 10.7910/DVN/DJVMTV). Latest year shipped: 2020. Burke et al, Nature 2023 estimate that the EPA AQS network undercounts wildfire-attributable PM2.5 by 10–30% in fire-affected counties. Coverage is CONUS only. Full methodology →
Outage Burden
When the grid goes dark
DOE/ORNL EAGLE-I customer-hours-out for Walla Walla County in 2024. The fraction is population-normalized via the Maximum Customer Count denominator (Brelsford et al, Sci Data 2024) so it's directly comparable across counties of any size.
Source: DOE/ORNL EAGLE-I (figshare 10.6084/m9.figshare.24237376). Latest year shipped: 2024. Coverage: 3,050 of 3,222 US counties; AK and some sparsely-served rural counties may have no data. Full methodology →
Severe Weather History
Recorded storm events and damages
NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database for Walla Walla County, 2010–2026. Cumulative + last 5 years of recorded weather events with deaths, injuries, and damages.
Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database (full history rollup). NOAA buckets ~50 raw event_type strings into 8 health-relevant categories. Coverage: 3,107 of 3,222 US counties; the absent are typically Alaska boroughs and territories where NOAA codes events as forecast zones rather than counties. Full methodology →
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Livestock density and federal-permit confidence
USDA Census of Agriculture (vintage 2022) animal-unit totals for Walla Walla County, normalized to land area and ranked nationally. Animal Units (AU) follow the EPA federal definition under 40 CFR §122.23.
Source: USDA Census of Agriculture 2022 (head counts) + EPA 40 CFR §122.23 (animal-unit conversion). The CAFO composite deliberately omits NPDES facility counts because federal coverage averages ~32% nationally per EPA-IG and is heavily state-skewed — adding it as a numerator would systematically bias the index toward delegated states. Full methodology →
Pesticide Use
USGS Pesticide National Synthesis
Annual pesticide application rollup for Walla Walla County from the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project. Most recent year on file: 2019. Mass figures use the EPest_HIGH estimate (the conservative-against-undercounting framing); EPest_LOW is also retained on the underlying data.
- 1.GLYPHOSATE244.5K kg
- 2.METOLACHLOR & METOLACHLOR-S30.7K kg
- 3.METOLACHLOR-S30.7K kg
- 4.BROMOXYNIL18.7K kg
- 5.2,4-D16.3K kg
Source: USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project (2019). USGS PNSP nationally; year 2019 is preliminary; 2018 unavailable; 2020+ not released. Update reliability medium-low. Full methodology →
Health Outcomes
Chronic disease prevalence
CDC PLACES model-based prevalence estimates for adults in Walla Walla County. Full profile covers 15+ health outcomes plus mortality on the platform.
| Condition | Walla Walla County | WA avg | US avg |
|---|---|---|---|
Current Asthma % of adults with current asthma | 11.0% -1.3% vs WA | 11.1% | 10.6% |
COPD % of adults with diagnosed COPD | 6.0% ▼ -11% vs WA | 6.8% | 8.6% |
Diabetes % of adults with diagnosed diabetes | 10.6% ▼ -7.1% vs WA | 11.4% | 13.7% |
Coronary Heart Disease % of adults with CHD | 6.5% ▼ -8.4% vs WA | 7.1% | 7.9% |
Depression % of adults ever diagnosed with depression | 24.8% -0.5% vs WA | 24.9% | 23.1% |
Frequent Mental Distress % of adults with 14+ poor mental health days/month | 16.8% +0.6% vs WA | 16.7% | 17.2% |
Vulnerable Medicare Population
Who needs the grid to stay alive
Medicare beneficiaries in Walla Walla County who depend on electricity for dialysis, oxygen, or other powered medical equipment. From the HHS emPOWER program, which CMS publishes monthly so emergency managers know who to find first when the power goes out.
| Population | Count | Per 1,000 Medicare |
|---|---|---|
Total Medicare beneficiaries Denominator | 14,799 | — |
Electricity-dependent (any DME) Ventilators, oxygen concentrators, IV pumps, motorized wheelchairs | 549 | 37.1 ▼ -6.4% vs WA |
Dialysis-dependent ESRD beneficiaries needing in-center or home dialysis | 33 | 2.23 ▲ +27% vs WA |
Oxygen-dependent Home oxygen concentrators (outage-vulnerable) | 153 | 10.3 ▼ -13% vs WA |
Source: HHS emPOWER Map (ArcGIS county layer), May 2026. Counts of 1–10 are masked as “≤10” per HHS privacy rules; per-1,000 rates are derived and still respect the privacy floor. Full methodology →
Provider Supply
Specialty physician density per 100,000 residents
Active providers in Walla Walla County from the CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES). Compared to the U.S. average for each specialty. Adjacency adjustment is applied separately in the Provider Gap pillar score.
| Specialty | Walla Walla County | US avg |
|---|---|---|
Primary Care Family medicine, internal medicine, general practice, pediatrics. | 138.5 per 100k ▲ +6.2% vs US | 130.4 |
Cardiology Cardiovascular disease, electrophysiology, interventional cardiology. | 9.7 per 100k ▼ -20% vs US | 12.1 |
Pulmonology Respiratory disease specialists — relevant to PM2.5 and wildfire smoke exposure. | 4.8 per 100k ▼ -20% vs US | 6.0 |
Psychiatry Mental health prescribers; complements behavioral health access. | 19.3 per 100k ▲ +3.4% vs US | 18.7 |
Oncology / Hematology Cancer specialists. | 8.1 per 100k ▲ +26% vs US | 6.4 |
Neurology Neurological disease specialists. | 6.4 per 100k ▼ -19% vs US | 7.9 |
Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES). Counts reflect providers with a primary practice address in Walla Walla County; specialty is taken from the provider's primary NUCC taxonomy code.
Pro analytical view
What drives this county's scores
The flagged signals and service-line opportunities for Walla Walla County, plus the methodology decomposition behind each score. Visible to Pro, Consultant Studio, and Enterprise tiers.
Where to focus
Pro feature
Top flagged signals + service lines are a Pro feature
See how each signal's components blend into its final score, and which signals + service lines this county should prioritize. Available on Professional, Consultant Studio, and Enterprise.
Score decomposition
Each named signal's component breakdown with weights. The bar length is the component's percentile rank; the parenthetical is its weight in the final blend.
Pro feature
Score decomposition is a Pro feature
See how each signal's components blend into its final score, and which signals + service lines this county should prioritize. Available on Professional, Consultant Studio, and Enterprise.
Tract drill-down
Census tracts inside Walla Walla County
Pro feature
Tract-level drill-down is a Pro feature
See how each signal's components blend into its final score, and which signals + service lines this county should prioritize. Available on Professional, Consultant Studio, and Enterprise.
On the full platform
What else is available for Walla Walla County
The page above is a subset. The free Community account unlocks the full single-county profile: every indicator, every data source, demographics, historical trends, and mortality data. Professional unlocks multi-county comparison, compound signal analysis, service line rankings, and consultant-ready PDF reports.
Full Environmental Profile
All 40+ environmental metrics including toxic releases, hazardous site proximity, PFAS detection, pesticide exposure, and climate stress indicators.
Service Line Opportunities
See how Walla Walla County ranks for respiratory, oncology, cardiovascular, renal, endocrine, and behavioral health service line opportunity.
Multi-County Comparison
Compare Walla Walla County side-by-side with neighboring counties across every dimension.
Trend Analysis
5-year sparklines for health outcomes, SDOH measures, and mortality rates so you can see where the county is heading, not just where it is today.
PDF Report Export
Generate a consultant-ready environmental health briefing for Walla Walla County with methodology citations. Drops straight into a CHNA or grant application.
Nearby Counties
Counties bordering Walla Walla County
Adjacent county profiles with their own scores and environmental health data. Source: Census Bureau County Adjacency File.
Data sources: EPA AQS, EPA EJSCREEN, EPA TRI, CDC PLACES, CDC WONDER, CMS NPPES, Census ACS, County Health Rankings, NOAA ACIS, NCI State Cancer Profiles. Every score on this page is derived from publicly available federal data, fused by the Banana Analytics pipeline.
Methodology: See the full scoring methodology (v1.2.0) for weights, sensitivity analysis, and validation against county-level mortality data.
Last refreshed: May 28, 2026