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 Lead poisoning is the greatest environmental health threat affecting children in the United States. Although all children are at risk for lead poisoning, studies have revealed that low-income children and families of color bear greater health and environmental risk burdens from lead poisoning than the society at large.
What many people do not know is that even low levels of lead poisoning in children can cause hyperactivity, reading disabilities, lowered IQ, and aggressive behavior. And worse, higher levels of lead poisoning cause mental retardation, convulsions, and coma. Because lead poisoning leads to irreversible and permanent damage in children, the consequences of lead poisoning are an expensive societal problem - especially when one considers how it prevents children from reaching their full potential and contributing fully to their communities.
However, lead poisoning is completely preventable. In fact, the only true cure is prevention.
Recognizing that the answer to lead poisining is the proverbial ounce of prevention, the PCL Foundation launched Lead Safe Sacramento - a pilot lead poisoning prevention program. Since 2003, the PCL Foundation has built and fostered relationships with neighborhood and community organizations, public and private agencies, and local stakeholders to identify resources to develop a strategy to address lead poisoning and mobilize prevention throughout Sacramento County. This on-the-ground work has resulted in the creation of a successful youth-based program that conducts participartory research and distributes essential information on lead poisoning throughout the most critical lead risk areas in Sacramento. Now entering its third year, Lead Safe Sacramento is a replicable program that the PCL Foundation wants to see implemented in other communities.
According to the Environmental Working Group's report, Lead Astray, in Sacramento County over 68,000 children live in homes that may contain lead-based paint hazards. Almost twenty percent of these children live in critical lead risk "hot spots." Hot spots are defined by researchers as areas with a higher percentage of older housing, poverty, and people of color. Moreover, 6,500 children were lead poisoned in Sacramento County between 1992 and 1998; the County, through its more traditional tracking methods, identified less than 3% of these poisoned children.
After months of research and collaborative work with community members and governmental agencies within the area, PCL Foundation determined that the best approach to quickly prevent lead poisoning included 1) focusing resources to target and screen high-risk children; and 2) increasing the number of children undergoing lead blood screens.
As a part of the first-year action plan, PCL Foundation worked with local government, community groups, schools, churches, and residents to:
- Target resources at high-risk neighborhoods
- Educate families and residents in high-risk neighborhoods
- Make screening easier for parents and children
- Educate healthcare and childcare providers, as well as schools
- Monitor healthcare providers on screening rates
- Enforce screening requirements
- Enforce healthcare providers to disclose results of screening
Additionally, by working with these other organizations, PCL Foundation discovered the need to target its efforts in Oak Park (a definite "hot spot"), as well as other probable high-risk areas in Sacramento.
During the second year of operations, PCL Foundation focused its efforts on outreach and lead poisoning education within at-risk areas. Thirty-five high school students from The Met Sacramento and Sacramento High School successfully completed lead poisoning prevention training provided by Sacramento County's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. They learned the sources and effects of lead poisoning and how to identify, prevent, or fix lead hazards. These students then put their training to good use by working in teams to canvass 519 locations where they made contact with 154 homeowners and tenants. Seventy-one residents participated in the program's lead assessment survey, and of those seventy-one surveyed, thirty-three were found to be high risk for lead contamination households. Moreover, two other important items came to light from the surveys:
- twenty-nine of the 33 high-risk households surveyed were located in Oak Park, which had previously been identified as a lead risk "hot spot";
- 58% of the households surveyed in Oak Park were identified as high-risk for lead contamination.
Consequently, the students concluded that
- 1) there is a need for primary prevention in Sacramento;
- 2) more resources and new lead reduction programs need to go to "high-risk" communities;
- 3) community members must be involved in outreach efforts and participate in community actions;
- 4) ALL children living in pre-1978 housing may be at risk for lead poisoning; and most importantly,
- 5) too many poor children and children of color are disproportionately affected by lead poisoning.
In June 2005, the Lead Safe Sacramento Students were invited by What Kids Can Do to the School Redesign Network Conference at Stanford University. This event brought together seven research teams from California and Washington who shared their research on issues such as smart growth, affordable housing, youth intervention, healthy lifestyles, community gardens, and ecological conservation. The Lead Safe Sacramento Students showcased their project, reflected on their experiences, and shared with others what it takes to create student action research.
Continuing throughout the summer and into the next academic year, Lead Safe Sacramento students will be providing follow-up with "at-risk" families to determine how they used the information presented to them during outreach. They will also continue identifying homes that would qualify for the "Lead Reduction Program" sponsored by the Community Resources Project, Inc., and, lastly, continue working to broaden prevention efforts in Oak Park and to expand Lead Safe Sacramento into other critical risk neighborhoods of Sacramento.
Meanwhile, PCL Foundation Environmental Health and Education Program Manager, René Guerrero is looking for ways to broaden Lead Safe Sacramento's outreach throughout the area, as well as ways to replicate the program in other communities throughout California. Guerrero says that continued funding from The California Wellness Foundation and the Washington Mutual Education Fund of the Sacramento Community Region Foundation will enable us in part to continue educating families, promoting blood lead testing of children, and identifying hazards in at-risk homes. However, to expand the program in order to have a greater impact on our local community, and throughout California, PCL Foundation needs additional funding from a number of its supporters.
To make a contribution to PCL Foundation's work on lead poisoning, click here.
To learn more about how a similar program can be started in your community, contact René Guerrero.
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