Objective: To build a synthetic indicator based on health degradation in the municipalities of the Department of Meta in the period 2009-2012 to enable prioritizing research needs and environmental intervention in these municipalities. Methodology: An analytical, observational, exploratory, retrospective study was carried out. Data were obtained from the state public health surveillance databases and the unified affiliated record (UAR), in the period 2009-2012 in the Department of Meta. Once the cases for analysis were selected, new databases were created which were analyzed in 4 stages: construction of simple indicators; thematic indexes; composite indicators, and the overall synthetic indicator. Results: The indicator showed a value for each of the 29 municipalities, making clear differences in environmental effects on health. San Carlos de Guaroa with the highest score (10,200) and Puerto Concordia (1,000). By stratifying the indicator, municipalities classified as: high need, average requirement, and low need. Discussion: Considering health as an indicator of the state of the environment and the environment as a determinant causal of health has generated the development of different methodologies to measure the cause-effect relationship between environment and health. The presence of environmental factors which trigger morbimortality, recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a driving force, pressure or exposure in the causation of environmental origin (Yassi et al., 2002; Posada et al., 2004), responsible for different behaviors in health degradation is concluded. Conclusions: The indicator allows measuring environmental differences between municipalities, and the differences in the effects of environment on health, as well as inferring the environmental conditions of the municipalities buy observing the presence of effects from: water, air, chemical substances, and fauna.