The National Minority Quality Forum has launched the Lead Risk Index to help health-care practitioners, policymakers, advocacy groups and industry gain a full understanding of childhood lead poisoning at the local level.
Nationally, an estimated 750,000 children under age six have an elevated blood lead level of 5 micrograms per deciliter or above, the level that represents the CDC’s reference value for lead poisoning in children.
“Because it is difficult to get a true picture of the lead issue at a local level, our approach combines an intuitive user interface with currently available data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state agencies, to provide the granularity needed for communities to take preventive action.”
— Gary A. Puckrein, President and CEO, National Minority Quality Forum
Lead Poisoning FAQs
How Common is Lead Posioning +
There’s a misperception that lead poisoning is a problem of the past. This misunderstanding has resulted in undiagnosed lead poisoning and, consequently, increased potential for developmental issues in our children.
Consider the primary source of lead poisoning: most buildings (schools, apartments, houses) built before 1978 likely have lead paint. In addition, lead can be found in soil (from leaded gasoline emissions, paint dust, and around industrial processes), drinking water (through lead solder and piping), the air (emitted by industrial sources and leaded aviation fuel) and, most surprising, in imported goods including toys, vinyl window blinds, jewelry, furniture, artificial plants and trees – anything manufactured with lead-based paint/products.
How Are People Exposed To Lead? +
Lead paint chips and dust are a primary source of lead inside the home every day and particularly when undergoing renovations. Lead dust from opening windows and doors is easily ingested by small children, as children and babies often put their hands (that may have lead dust on them) in their mouths. Lead dust in the air can be ingested by simply breathing. Drinking water tapped through old plumbing with lead pipes or soldering can contain high levels of lead. Finally, imported goods manufactured with, or tainted by, lead-based products, can be very dangerous when small children put them in their mouths.
Outside the home, soil can be contaminated by industrial sources, deterioration of exterior lead paint on buildings or a natural high level of lead. Lead is in the air and soil around airports, ore and mining facilities and other industrial sources – even factories closed for decades.
Lead does not decay or decompose, so it is around forever.
What Are The Effects of Lead Poisoning? +
Children – If not detected early, children with elevated levels of lead in their blood can suffer from brain and nervous system damage that can result in behavioral, developmental and learning problems. Children can also exhibit slow growth, hearing problems, headaches, reduced postnatal growth, delayed puberty, and in rare acute cases, seizures, coma and even death.
It is important to note that often children don’t show symptoms of lead poisoning, or they may be mistaken for those of common illnesses like a cold or flu. The best way to detect lead poisoning is to get a blood test from your pediatrician.
Pregnant Women – When exposed to lead over time, it is naturally stored in our bones along with calcium; when calcium is released from a pregnant woman’s bones, lead is also released and can expose the developing fetus. Elevated levels of lead in the blood of pregnant women can result in reduced fetal growth, lower birth weight, and possibly in preterm birth.
Adults – Adults can suffer from hearing and vision impairment, reproductive problems (in men and women), renal dysfunction, high blood pressure and hypertension, nerve disorders and memory and concentration problems.
How can I prevent lead exposure? +
Lead poisoning is entirely preventable. The key is stopping children from coming into contact with lead and identifying and treating those who have been poisoned by lead.
There are many ways parents can reduce a child’s exposure to lead. Lead hazards in a child’s environment must be identified and controlled or removed safely. Talk to your doctor or local health department about how to control and remove sources of lead safely.
Ensuring children have good nutrition is another way to help them combat the effects of lead. Parents should ensure their children eat healthy, low-fat foods high in iron, calcium and Vitamin C.
About the Index
The National Minority Quality Forum has launched the Lead Risk Index to help health-care practitioners, policymakers, advocacy groups and industry gain a full understanding of childhood lead poisoning at the local level.
This internet-based resource enables users to map the estimated prevalence of elevated blood levels, total counts and average blood lead levels in children under age six at the zip-code level nationally as well as within individual states, counties, metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and federal and state legislative districts. In addition to mapping these parameters for the total population of children under age six (overall), the index also maps them by gender and race/ethnicity. The Index also provides users the opportunity to map the percentage of housing built prior to 1980 (when lead paint was finally banned) as well as the estimated number of children under age six living in pre-1980 housing in any geography down to the zip code level. Index users can generate color-coded maps and charts of the estimated prevalence of the elevated blood lead levels, total counts and average blood lead levels in children under age six, as well as this housing information, for downloading, printing, and dissemination to support educational and advocacy initiatives.
According to Gary Puckrein, PhD, President and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum and developer of the Index: “Because it is difficult to get a true picture of the lead issue at a local level, our approach combines an intuitive user interface with currently available data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state agencies, to provide the granularity needed for communities to take preventive action.”
Methodology
Lead is highly toxic, especially to young children under 6. It can harm a child’s brain, kidneys, bone marrow, and other body systems. The most common source of lead exposure for children today is lead paint in older housing and the contaminated dust and soil it generates. [1] To eliminate lead poisoning problems for children, it is critical to identify communities with high lead poisoning risk, so that prevention and treatment resources can be allocated to where they are most needed. To accomplish this, we modeled lead risk metrics by the demographic risk factors of gender, race/ethnicity, age, poverty status, old housing stock, as well as county level blood lead test data using Bayesian hierarchical regression models. The model data includes the 2005–2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) [2], and CDC’s state surveillance data on Blood lead tests. [3] We then applied the models to zip code demographics to estimate lead risk within zip codes. We aggregated the zip code estimates of lead risk to higher geographical levels—including federal and state legislative districts, metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), counties and states—through crosswalk tables.
