Sterling Ratio — Environmental Health Risk Lookup

Eight‑layer forensic cascade that tells you if your neighborhood is paying the health costs of nearby pollution.

Look Up a Census Tract

Enter an address, ZIP code, or 11‑digit FIPS code.

⚠ Notice: Sterling Ratio is a research and forensic‑detection tool. It identifies statistical patterns in public data. It is NOT a medical diagnosis, real estate disclosure, or substitute for professional environmental site assessment.

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Census Tract
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FIPS Code
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Population
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Per‑Capita Liability Signal
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Nearby Superfund Sites

What does this mean for me?

How We Calculated This

The Sterling Ratio is built like a pyramid — each layer adds a different kind of evidence. Click any layer name to learn more about the science behind it.

About Sterling Ratio

The Sterling Ratio is an eight‑layer forensic cascade that cross‑references EPA Superfund data, CMS Medicaid billing, and Census demographics to quantify environmental health cost externalization. Validated on multiple NPL sites and designed for court admissibility under Daubert standards.

🔬 Foundational Research

Dr. Aaron Reuben (Duke University) published a landmark study in 2024 documenting that childhood lead exposure from gasoline contributed to 151 million excess cases of psychiatric disorders in the United States. This research proved that environmental toxins produce measurable, population‑level mental health burdens that are borne by the public through Medicaid and other programs — exactly the cost‑shift the Sterling Ratio quantifies.

📄 Read the study in JAMA Psychiatry

🛠️ XRF Data Correction (Dr. Aaron Specht)

Dr. Aaron Specht (Purdue University) developed portable X‑ray fluorescence (pXRF) methods for measuring lead in bone. His work revealed that standard XRF readings can be distorted by overlying tissue — a problem called attenuation. Black Swan Technologies has developed a correction algorithm based on the Beer‑Lambert law that recovers the true signal from published pXRF data, enabling independent verification of contamination measurements without access to the original device.

📄 Specht et al. on XRF bone lead measurement

We will soon offer an attenuation‑correction service for researchers and law firms needing to validate or challenge XRF data.

🌵 Air‑Quality Monitoring Deserts

Over 58% of U.S. counties lack a single regulatory air‑quality monitor. These "monitoring deserts" — disproportionately located in low‑income and minority communities — allow polluters to operate without real‑time oversight. The Sterling Ratio flags tracts that fall within these deserts, adding weight to the fraud score when health cost spikes coincide with unmonitored industrial emissions.

📄 Identifying air quality monitoring deserts in the United States (PNAS, 2025)

Methodology Layers

  1. Contamination (EPA Superfund Registry)
  2. Demographics (Census ACS)
  3. Medicaid Cost‑Shift (CMS billing data)
  4. ICD‑10 / ATSDR Toxicological Validation
  5. Morning Surge Circadian Mortality Analysis
  6. NamUs Missing Persons Spatial Overlay
  7. Compliance Monitoring (air monitoring gaps)
  8. Hilbert‑Odù Multi‑Dimensional Pattern Detection