Un-Leaded Only: Toward a Safer City for Children. A 2002 Report on Childhood Lead Paint Poisoning in Philadelphia

As part of its work in improving the lives and life changes of children in the Philadelphia region, the Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth examined the problem of local childhood lead paint poisoning. This report describes their efforts, beginning with a description of the impact of lead poisoning on children's health and a discussion of the causes and scope of the problem in the Philadelphia area, focusing on the special needs of pregnant women. Philadelphia's efforts to combat lead poisoning are then detailed, including those related to detection and screening, education and outreach, housing remediation, and treatment. The report discusses on-going problems with childhood lead poisoning and emphasizes the importance of prevention and early intervention. A diagram compares the financial costs of four examples of intervention to keep healthy those children who live in lead poisoned homes. A map details the number of children identified in 2001 with high blood lead levels for the Philadelphia Council Districts. The report describes promising lead-abatement practices from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Thirteen recommendations for Philadelphia are then presented, including commitment to taking strong action to prevent infants from being injured by lead, eliminating the backlog of poisoned homes, increasing the capacity to complete lead hazard reduction work on homes of newly poisoned children, increasing the number of trained lead hazard reduction workers, working with the federal government to develop programs to repair houses and make them safe, and expanding lead poisoning prevention education and outreach activities. (Contains 37 endnotes.) (KB)