10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure

A report from the Health Impact Project

Aug 2017

10 Policies to Prevent

and Respond to

Childhood Lead

Exposure

An assessment of the risks communities face and key federal, state, and local solutions

Contents

1 Overview

5 The history of lead in the United States

Lead and the brain 8

Disproportionate Risks and Related Health Disparities 9

12 Methods

Quantitative methods 12

Qualitative methods 14

Study limitations 15

17 Total prevention of lead poisoning

Lead is ubiquitous; past and present uses challenge eradication eorts 17

Lead in Everyday Items 18

Modeling total prevention 20

23 Drinking water

Lead in Water and Infant Health 23

Drinking Water in Schools and Child Care Facilities 25

Residential lead service line replacement 28

Policy in Action: Strategies to Promote Lead Service Line Replacement 29

Policy in Action: Replacing Lead Service Lines 36

38 Lead paint hazards

Residential remediation 38

Policy in Action: Local Lead Paint Laws 40

Policy in Action: State Lead Paint Hazard Control Laws 42

Policy in Action: Financing Lead Paint Hazard Control 46

Lead Paint Hazards and Contaminated Soil at Schools and Child Care Facilities 49

Safe renovation, repair, and painting enforcement 52

57 Air emissions and soil contamination

Lead smelting and battery recycling facilities 58

Superfund sites 59

Policy in Action: Superfund Cleanup 60

Policy in Action: Imposing a Fee on Emitters to Fund Public Lead Remediation Programs 62

Leaded aviation gas 63

Policy in Action: Safe Soil for Schools and Child Care 66

67 Addressing data gaps

69 Supporting children with a history of lead exposure

Blood lead testing 69

Academic and behavioral interventions 70

Policy in Action: Serving Children With a History of Lead Exposure 73

Nutrition 74

Policy in Action: Healthy Diets for Better Long-Term Outcomes 74

79 Recommendations

Priority sources 79

Additional sources 82

Poisoning response 83

Data and research 84

86 Conclusion

87 Glossary

90 Appendix: Methodology

Policy screening process 91

Literature review 92

Case studies 95

Listening sessions 96

Parent conversations 96

Focus groups 96

Quantitative methods 98

Assumptions for modeled policies 106

Uncertainty in modeling lead impacts and remediation policies 109

Qualitative description of uncertainty 110

Bounding exercises to measure uncertainty in eect sizes 112

Quantitative sensitivity analyses 113

118 Endnotes

Figures and tables

Figure 1: Exposure Prevention Eectively Lowers Children’s Lead Levels 6

Figure 2: All Children Face Some Exposure Risk, but Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist 10

Table 1: Keeping Blood Lead Levels of Children Born in 2018 at Zero Would Generate

$84 Billion in Beneﬁts 20

Figure 3: Most Beneﬁts of Exposure Prevention Accrue for Children Whose Blood Lead Would Otherwise

Be Below 2 μg/dL 21

Table 2: Keeping Blood Lead Levels at Zero Among Children Born in 2018 Would Improve Educational

and Social Outcomes 22

Table 3: Every Dollar Invested in Full Lead Service Line Replacement Would Generate $.42 to $1.33

in Beneﬁts 34

Table 4: Targeting Lead Paint Hazard Control to Older Low-Income Housing Oers the Greatest

Per-Dollar Beneﬁts 45

Table 5: Lead-Safe Renovation Could Yield $3.10 Per $1 Invested 55

Figure 4: Piston Engine Aircraft and Industrial Processes Make Up the Majority of Lead Emissions 57

Table 6: Removing Lead From Aviation Fuel Could Prevent a 5.7% Increase in Children’s Blood Lead 65

Table 7: Providing Both Early and Middle Childhood Interventions Could Yield the Greatest Beneﬁts 77

Table A.1: Summary of Research Methods 90

Table A.2: Strength of Evidence Criteria for Literature Review Used in Quantitative Models 94

Table A.3: Focus Group Participant Demographics and Other Characteristics 97

Table A.4: Summary of Eects of Selected Lead-Exposure Prevention Policies 100

Table A.5: Value of Prevention Tool Sensitivity Analysis Results 114

External experts and reviewers

This report was reviewed by Morri E. Markowitz, M.D., the Children’s Hospital at Monteﬁore, and professor

of pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Steven Teutsch, M.D., M.P.H., senior fellow, Leonard D.

Schaeer Center for Health Policy and Economics, University of Southern California, senior fellow, Public

Health Institute, and adjunct professor, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Although they found the approach

and methodology to be sound, neither they nor their organizations necessarily endorse the report’s ﬁndings

or conclusions.

Robert Wood

Johnson Foundation

Giridhar Mallya, senior policy ocer

Pamela Russo, senior program ocer

Study partners

Child Trends

Vanessa Sacks, research scientist

Kristin Moore, senior scholar and youth development

director

Fadumo Abdi, research analyst

Altarum Institute

George Miller, fellow

Paul Hughes-Cromwick, co-director, Center for

Sustainable Health Spending

Corwin Rhyan, health care research analyst

The Pew Charitable

Trusts

Susan K. Urahn, executive vice president

Allan Coukell, senior director

Health Impact Project

Rebecca Morley, director

Amber Lenhart, senior associate

Gabriela Illa, associate

Mary Jean Brown, consultant

Urban Institute

Steven Martin, senior research associate

Gregory Acs, director, Income and Beneﬁts Policy Center

Trust for America’s Health

Rich Hamburg, executive vice president and chief

operating ocer

Albert Lang, senior communications ocer

National Center for Healthy Housing

David Jacobs, chief scientist

Acknowledgments

The team thanks the following people for their contributions to this report as partners, subject matter experts,

and case study reviewers: Christine Stanik, Altarum Institute; Jonathan Schwabish, Urban Institute; Jonathan

Wilson and Amanda Reddy, National Center for Healthy Housing; Jonathan Cuppett, Water Research Foundation;

Maida Galvez, M.D., Mount Sinai; Todd Grindal, Ed.D., Abt Associates; Cheryl Johnson, People for Community

Recovery; Linda Kite, Healthy Homes Collaborative; Patrick MacRoy, M.A., Environmental Health Strategy Center;

Howard Mielke, Ph.D., Tulane University School of Medicine; Deborah Nagin, M.P.H., New York City Department

of Health and Mental Hygiene; Tom Neltner, J.D., and Ananya Roy, Sc.D., Environmental Defense Fund; Rick

Nevin, ICF International; Ruth Ann Norton and G. Wesley Stewart, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative; Janet

Phoenix, M.D., The George Washington University; Lisa Ragain, Metro Washington Council of Governments; Jay

Schneider, Ph.D., Thomas Jeerson University; Lynn Thorp, Clean Water Action/Clean Water Fund; Steven Via,

American Water Works Association; Kamillah Wood, M.D., Stewards of Aordable Housing for the Future; Laura

Brion, Childhood Lead Action Project; Valerie Charlton, M.D., Lauren Rice, and Rick Kreutzer, M.D., California

Department of Public Health; Julia Robey Christian and Lisa A. Gilmore, Government of the District of Columbia;

Dale Clarkson, Peoria City/County Health Department; Kara Eastman, M.S.W., Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance;

Angie Goodman, Lansing Board of Water and Light; Gary Kirkmire, City of Rochester Inspection and Compliance

Services; Elisabeth Long, Washington State Department of Health; Lisa Smestad, City of Minneapolis; Amber A.

Sturdivant, District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment; Claire Barnett, M.B.A., Healthy Schools

Network; Don Farquhar, J.D., National Conference of State Legislatures; Perry Gottesfeld, M.P.H., Occupational

Knowledge International; Paul Haan, Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan; and Christina Hecht, Ph.D.,

Nutrition Policy Institute at the University of California.

Many thanks also to the concerned citizens, parents, community-based organizations, community health

professionals, landlords, and federal, state, and local agency sta who served as key sources of information

for this project.

Finally, the team thanks current and former Pew colleagues Dan Benderly, Gaby Bonilla, Stefanie Carignan, Erika

Compart, Jennifer V. Doctors, Richard Friend, Tami Holzman, Carol Hutchinson, Bronwen Latimer, Mary Markley,

Bernard Ohanian, Jennifer Peltak, and Peter Wu, as well as our fact check team, for their assistance in preparing

this document for publication.

Advisory Group

This report beneﬁted from the guidance of a formal advisory group with diverse perspectives

and expertise. Although the research team gave substantial weight to the committee’s input

and advice, it retained ﬁnal authority over and responsibility for the process, ﬁndings, and

recommendations. Additionally, although the committee members found the approach and

methodology to be sound, neither they nor their organizations necessarily endorse the ﬁndings

or conclusions.

Committee members

Nancy Andrews, M.S., president and chief executive ocer, Low Income Investment Fund

John Bartlett, executive director, Metropolitan Tenants Organization

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Ph.D., M.Ed., Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development,

Columbia University

Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., M.P.H., director, Pediatric Residency Program, Hurley Medical

Center, Michigan State University

Mark Hayward, Ph.D., professor of sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

Ruth Katz, J.D., M.P.H., executive director, the Aspen Institute

Bruce Lanphear, M.D., M.P.H., professor, Simon Fraser University

Marie Lynn Miranda, Ph.D., M.A., provost, Rice University

Brenda Music, co-director, Iowa Parents Against Lead

Damon Music, co-director, Iowa Parents Against Lead

Michèle Prévost, Ph.D., professor, Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering,

Polytechnique Montréal

Queen Zakia Shabazz, director, United Parents Against Lead

Steve Shabazz, parent advocate, United Parents Against Lead

Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., professor, George Washington University

Joshua Sharfstein, M.D., associate dean, Johns Hopkins University

Deborah Cory-Slechta, Ph.D., M.A., professor, Department of Environmental Medicine,

University of Rochester

Lauren Smith, M.D., M.P.H., managing director, Foundation Strategy Group

Alan Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., professor of pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Overview

The ongoing lead contamination crises in Flint, Michigan, and East Chicago, Indiana, as well as the surge of news

reports about lead risks in communities across the country have shone a national spotlight on the problem of

childhood lead exposure. The increased public awareness and scientiﬁc evidence that lead poisoning is completely

preventable make this a critical moment for action to protect the nation’s children, enhance their opportunities to

succeed, and reduce costs to taxpayers.

With that background, the Health Impact Project convened a team of researchers to assess the implications of

childhood lead exposure and perform a cost-beneﬁt analysis of various policies to prevent and respond to the

problem. The study team conducted a literature review, case studies, interviews, national listening sessions, focus

groups, and quantitative analyses using models developed by Altarum Institute and by the Brookings Institution,

Child Trends, and Urban Institute. The team included sta from Altarum, Child Trends, Urban Institute, Trust for

America’s Health, the National Center for Healthy Housing, and the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Lead’s adverse health impacts have been recognized since at least the second century B.C. Since then, thousands

of studies have concluded that lead has wide-ranging eects on the health of young children and signiﬁcant costs

to taxpayers. Even at very low levels, lead exposure aects the brain’s ability to control impulses and process

information. Lead-poisoned children are more likely to struggle in school, drop out, get into trouble with the law,

underperform in the workplace, and earn less throughout their lives, independent of other social and economic

factors. The ﬁnancial consequences of these outcomes include billions of dollars in public spending on special

education, juvenile justice, and other social services.

Despite the evidence, the U.S. lagged many European nations by nearly 50 years in reducing the sources of exposure

to lead. The delay resulted in greater quantities of lead in the environment, higher rates of childhood lead poisoning,

and the need for more resources for remediation. Various federal agencies have imposed restrictions on lead during

the past 40 years, yet lead persists in many places, mainly in drinking water and in existing paint in older homes

and the dust and soil contamination it generates. Many states and communities have implemented laws to address

lead exposure, but those eorts have been fragmented and underfunded. As a result, lead continues to adversely

aect millions of children, particularly those in low-income communities and those of color because of their

disproportionate risk of exposure to sources of lead in older homes and under-resourced neighborhoods.

The study team analyzed existing policies for their impacts on public health and health equity—the concept that

every person should have the same opportunity to be healthy. The eort was guided by a diverse group of advisers

and experts from ﬁelds including environmental and public health, child development, economics, housing, health

care, environmental and social justice, and drinking water engineering. In addition, input from stakeholders,

including families whose children have suered the toxic eects of lead, provided valuable insights.

Where economic beneﬁts are estimated, they are referred to as “future beneﬁts”—meaning they are discounted at

a rate of 3 percent per year to account for changes in the value of money over time. The cost-beneﬁt analyses are

based on the lifelong impacts of interventions for a single cohort of U.S. children, those who will be born in 2018.

Where appropriate, the analysis includes beneﬁts that would accrue for additional children born into the same

households within 10 years. In some cases, costs were unavailable so a cost-beneﬁt ratio is not provided.

Key ﬁndings include:

• Removing leaded drinking water service lines from the homes of children born in 2018 would protect more

than 350,000 children and yield $2.7 billion in future beneﬁts, or about $1.33 per dollar invested.

Of those beneﬁts, about $2.2 billion in higher lifetime earnings, better health, and other gains would accrue

to 272,000 children born in the 2018 cohort, and $550 million would come from protecting the roughly

80,000 other children born into those homes over the next 10 years. The total includes $480 million for the

federal government and $250 million for states and municipalities from health and education savings and

increased tax revenue associated with higher earnings among the cohort. Replacing these lead pipes would

cost an estimated $2 billion.

• Eradicating lead paint hazards from older homes of children from low-income families would provide

$3.5 billion in future beneﬁts, or approximately $1.39 per dollar invested, and protect more than

311,000 children. About $2.8 billion of those beneﬁts would accrue to roughly 244,000 of the 4 million

children in the 2018 cohort. The other $670 million in beneﬁts would accrue from protecting approximately

67,000 additional children born into those homes over the next 10 years. The total beneﬁts include

$630 million in federal and $320 million in state and local health and education savings and increased

revenue. Controlling lead paint hazards would cost $2.5 billion for the 2018 cohort.

• Ensuring that contractors comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule that requires lead-safe

renovation, repair, and painting practices would protect about 211,000 children born in 2018 and provide

future beneﬁts of $4.5 billion, or about $3.10 per dollar spent. This includes $990 million in federal and

$500 million in state and local health and education savings and increased revenue. The eort would cost

about $1.4 billion.

• Eliminating lead from airplane fuel would protect more than 226,000 children born in 2018 who live

near airports, generate $262 million in future beneﬁts, and remove roughly 450 tons of lead from the

environment every year.

• Providing targeted evidence-based academic and behavioral interventions to the roughly 1.8 million children

with a history of lead exposure could increase their lifetime family incomes and likelihood of graduating

from high school and college and decrease their potential for teen parenthood and criminal conviction.

No studies have speciﬁcally assessed the eectiveness of such programs for lead-exposed children. However,

research shows that for children at similar developmental risk from trauma, poverty, and other adverse

experiences, certain high-quality interventions can increase the likelihood of earning a high school diploma

and a four-year college degree and reduce the chance of becoming teen parents. The estimated beneﬁts

presume comparable impacts on lead-exposed children.

The costs and beneﬁts outlined in the bullets above are based on a targeted approach to implementing the

interventions, such as focusing on older homes with the highest probability of having lead hazards, and on

populations at greatest risk, including low-income families. These economic calculations do not include emotional

distress or other potentially large costs to families, such as time away from work.

Preventing childhood lead exposure will require signiﬁcant policy and regulatory action, coordination across levels

of government, and public and private investments, but it has the potential to generate substantial economic

and public health gains in the short and long terms. The maximum potential future beneﬁts of preventing all lead

exposure for the 2018 birth cohort, such that those children’s blood lead levels could be kept from rising above

zero, could reach $84 billion, not including the costs to achieve such total prevention. This ﬁgure includes nearly

$18.5 billion for the federal government and $9.6 billion for states in the form of increased revenue and savings to

the health care, education, and criminal justice systems. Calculating the cost of such hypothetical total prevention

was beyond the scope of this study, but as shown above, the models for the individual interventions, which together

could address a signiﬁcant share of children’s exposure risk, do include cost estimates.

No recent conclusive epidemiologic evidence exists on the relative contribution of dierent sources to children’s

blood lead levels,

so based on the results of its research, the study team has prioritized policies that the research

literature strongly indicated could have the greatest positive population-wide eect on blood lead levels and could

protect the most children. Secondarily, the team proposes focusing on other sources that contribute to the overall

amount of lead, including nonessential uses of lead, which may cause individual acute cases of lead poisoning, but

account for a smaller proportion of lead in children’s blood overall. Concurrent with eorts to prevent exposure,

the team also encourages the adoption of policies for intervening with children already poisoned by lead and for

improving the data available to policymakers and the public.

The study team recommends:

Priority sources

• Reduce lead in drinking water in homes built before 1986 and other places children frequent. States and

municipalities, with support from federal agencies, should fully replace lead service lines, from street to

structure, that provide drinking water to homes built before the EPA banned their use. The EPA should

strengthen its requirements to reduce the corrosivity of drinking water, improve water sampling protocols,

and create a science-based household water lead action level—the amount that requires intervention—to

help families and communities assess their risks. States and localities should investigate and mitigate drinking

water hazards in schools and child care facilities.

• Remove lead paint hazards from low-income housing built before 1960 and other places children spend

time. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, about 3.6 million homes nationwide

that house young children have lead hazards such as peeling paint, contaminated dust, or toxic soil. HUD, the

EPA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should work with states and local governments to

support replacement of windows coated with lead paint, ﬁx peeling paint, clean up contaminated dust, and

treat toxic soil in and around those homes. States should require school districts and child care facilities to

identify and remediate lead paint hazards.

• Increase enforcement of the federal renovation, repair, and painting rule. The EPA and its state agency

partners should conduct more investigations to ensure that contractors are in compliance with federal

regulations requiring training and certiﬁcation to minimize dust and debris when working with lead-based

paint. The EPA and states should emphasize enforcement for work done at child care facilities and in housing

built before 1960.

Additional sources

• Reduce lead in food and consumer products. The federal government, through participation in the

international Codex Alimentarius Commission—a cooperative eort of the United Nations and World Health

Organization—should encourage expedited reduction of international limits on lead in foods, particularly those

that young children and babies are likely to consume. Further, where local data indicate that children are being

exposed to lead from sources such as candy, health remedies, or cosmetics, state and local agencies should

target education and outreach to at-risk neighborhoods; support cultural awareness among physicians; and

increase investigation and enforcement of small retailers.

• Reduce air lead emissions. The EPA and other federal agencies should collaborate to curtail new discharges by

reducing concentrations of lead into the environment, such as from aviation gas and lead smelting and battery

recycling facilities.

• Clean up contaminated soil. The EPA should collaborate with business to remediate dangerous conditions at

and near facilities that extract lead from batteries and other electronics.

Poisoning response

• Improve blood lead testing among children at high risk of exposure and ﬁnd and remediate the sources

of their exposure. Federal and state health agencies should work with parents of lead-poisoned children,

providers, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to remove barriers to blood lead testing and

reporting, and to reduce sources of lead in children’s home environments.

• Ensure access to developmental and neuropsychological assessments and appropriate high-quality

programs for children with elevated blood lead levels. The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services

and Education and state and local health and education agencies should invest in education and care

programs, and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should increase children’s access to

developmental assessments and neuropsychological testing so that the services provided address each child’s

individual needs.

Data and research

• Improve public access to local data. Federal, state, and local authorities should work together to make lead-

risk data available to families, policymakers, and other stakeholders who need information about sources of

exposure, such as property-speciﬁc information on leaded drinking water pipes and lead in the water, dust,

paint, and soil at or near homes, schools, and child care facilities.

• Fill gaps in research to better target state and local prevention and response eorts. Federal, state, and

local agencies and philanthropic organizations should support new studies and conduct their own research to

identify sources of lead exposure and populations at greatest risk.

Policy initiatives such as these, while ambitious, are not without precedent, and this report includes illustrative

case studies from states and municipalities that have tackled signiﬁcant lead-exposure problems.

The report begins with a brief history of lead in the U.S. and the policies enacted to address it, a discussion of

the impact of lead on children’s brains and the disproportionate risks to low-income children and children of

color, and a description of the study methods and limitations. It then examines policies to prevent exposure,

including interventions focused on lead in drinking water, paint, dust, air emissions, and soil, as well as research

gaps revealed during the study of those policy options. Later sections look at strategies for improving blood

lead testing in children and at nutritional, educational, and behavioral programs to help mitigate the eects of

lead in children already exposed. Each policy discussion includes literature review ﬁndings; case studies; input

from stakeholders; potential challenges; and, when possible, costs, beneﬁts, and simulated eects on children’s

lifetime outcomes. The study concludes with a detailed list of actions federal, state, and local policymakers can

take to implement the above recommendations. (See Page 79.)

The history of lead in the United States

By the 20th century, lead had permeated every aspect of American life, from air in cities to windows and

plumbing of homes across the country. In 1900, “more than 70 percent of [the nation’s] cities with populations

greater than 30,000 used lead water lines.”

Then in 1923, leaded automobile gasoline entered the public market

and quickly surpassed other fuels, becoming one of the most important sources of lead exposure.

Further,

between 1900 and 1950, paint containing high concentrations of lead pigments replaced wallpaper as the

primary wall covering in homes.

Lead’s harmful eects on children were ﬁrst documented in Australia during the 1890s, and by the 1920s, several

European nations had adopted laws limiting lead in paint.

For example, France, Belgium, and Austria banned

white-lead interior paint in 1909. Then, in 1921, the International Labour Organisation adopted a proposal to

prohibit the use of lead-based paint in all member countries, but the U.S. declined to adopt the rule.

During this

same period, public concern led some American towns and cities to prohibit the use of leaded drinking water

lines.

In the 1930s, the FDA recognized the need to control potential lead exposure from food and limited the use

of lead-containing substances, such as pesticides.

But despite the growing evidence of lead’s toxic eects on children, during the 20th century the Lead Industries

Association aggressively promoted lead as a superior product while downplaying public health risks and

undercutting larger-scale regulatory eorts.

Notably, the industry developed model building codes for lead in

plumbing and paint and successfully lobbied for their adoption by federal, state, and municipal governments.

Additional federal action lagged until the Clean Air Act of 1970, which regulated air pollution and required that

all cars manufactured in the U.S. after 1975 be built with catalytic converters—emission control devices that

turned out to be incompatible with leaded gas.

The 1971 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, which

prohibited the use of lead paint in government-funded housing, was largely driven by the determined eorts of

the scientiﬁc community, whose work would help to shape the next 40 years of federal guidelines and policies

to protect children.

In 1973, the EPA announced a phase-out of lead in gasoline, although the process took

more than 20 years.

Thanks to key policy actions, including the elimination of leaded gasoline, reductions in

industrial emissions, limits placed on lead in residential paint in 1978, the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, the

1986 prohibition against use of lead pipes and plumbing, and a shift in the 1990s to welded (nonsoldered) food

cans, average blood lead levels among U.S. children have declined by about 94 percent from 15 micrograms

per deciliter (μg/dL) in 1976 to 0.86 μg/dL today.

(See Figure 1.) In the early 1970s, the U.S. Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for public health action at a blood lead level of 40 μg/dL. Since

that time the agency has incrementally lowered the threshold for action. In October 2012, the CDC established

a reference value—the level at which a child’s blood lead level is much higher than most children’s and public

health interventions are recommended—of 5 μg/dL and declared, “No safe blood lead level in children has been

identiﬁed.”

The CDC’s scientiﬁc advisers recommended lowering the reference level to 3.5 μg/dL, and agency

ocials were considering the change as of the writing of this report.

Blood lead level (µg/dL)

1971 Lead-based paint restricted

in federally assisted housing

1973 Phase-out of leaded gasoline begins

2012 CDC updates

recommendations on children’s

blood lead levels

1992 Comprehensive law sets

national strategy for eliminating

lead paint hazards.

1995 Lead-soldered

food cans banned

1999-2001 Standards for lead

in paint, dust and soil created

2000 Federal plan targets

lead-paint hazards

1991 Rules restrict lead and

copper in drinking water

1986 Use of lead

in pipes, solder,

and ﬂux limited

2008 Renovation contractors

required to have lead-paint

safety certiﬁcation

2.7

1.9

1.7

1.8

1.6 1.5 1.5

.97

1.3

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990

1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018

1970

1.17

1978

• Lead in household paint and

certain children’s products limited

• Air quality standards for lead set

• Protections from lead established

for industrial workers

2017 HUD updates

lead-paint regulations

3.6

2.2

1996 Known

lead-paint

hazards must

be disclosed at

sale or lease

of housing

1999 Lead-based

paint in federally

owned and assisted

housing regulated

Sources: Reproduced and modiﬁed from Mary Jean Brown & H. Falk, “Toolkit for Establishing Laws to Control the Use of Lead Paint.

Module C.iii. Conducting Blood Lead Prevalence Studies,” Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint (2016); President’s Task Force on

Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, “Key Federal Programs to Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures and Eliminate

Associated Health Impacts” (November 2016), https://ptfceh.niehs.nih.gov/features/assets/ﬁles/key_federal_programs_to_reduce_

childhood_lead_exposures_and_eliminate_associated_health_impactspresidents_508.pdf

Figure 1

Exposure Prevention Eectively Lowers Children’s Lead Levels

Average blood lead levels in children 1 to 5 and federal policies

Blood lead level (µg/dL)

1971 Lead-based paint restricted

in federally assisted housing

1973 Phase-out of leaded gasoline begins

2012 CDC updates

recommendations on children’s

blood lead levels

1992 Comprehensive law sets

national strategy for eliminating

lead paint hazards.

1995 Lead-soldered

food cans banned

1999-2001 Standards for lead

in paint, dust and soil created

2000 Federal plan targets

lead-paint hazards

1991 Rules restrict lead and

copper in drinking water

1986 Use of lead

in pipes, solder,

and ﬂux limited

2008 Renovation contractors

required to have lead-paint

safety certiﬁcation

2.7

1.9

1.7

1.8

1.6 1.5 1.5

.97

1.3

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990

1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018

1970

1.17

1978

• Lead in household paint and

certain children’s products limited

• Air quality standards for lead set

• Protections from lead established

for industrial workers

2017 HUD updates

lead-paint regulations

3.6

2.2

1996 Known

lead-paint

hazards must

be disclosed at

sale or lease

of housing

1999 Lead-based

paint in federally

owned and assisted

housing regulated

Despite this progress, U.S. children remain at risk from lead exposure. The CDC found in 2016 that approximately

500,000 children ages 1-5 tested at or above the reference value.

Additionally, many federal limits on lead in the

environment have not been updated to reﬂect new evidence about the eects of low-level exposure, and most

agencies have not set standards to protect unborn babies and pregnant women.

For example, in 2016, during

the most recent such review, the EPA opted not to update the 2008 air standards for lead. Standards for paint,

dust, soil, water, and occupational hazards are 15 to 40 years old, despite calls to modernize them, such as from

the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.

For example, the EPA’s soil lead standard is 400 parts per million (ppm) for

areas where children play, while, by comparison, California’s guideline is 80 ppm.

Lead and the brain

Very high doses of lead, which are rarely seen in the U.S. today, can cause seizures, coma, and death.

However,

even much lower levels, between 3 and 5 μg/dL, can lead to neurologic damage, including impaired memory and

executive function,

which is the ability to plan, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks. Such levels can

lead to decreased IQ and academic performance and can also cause behavioral problems, such as impulsivity,

hyperactivity, and attention disorders.

Some studies suggest that lead exposure may also cause conduct

disorders, depression, anxiety, and withdrawn behavior

—the tendency to avoid the unfamiliar, either people,

places, or situations.

An advertisement for leaded paint from 1866.

Photo: Library of Congress

The mechanisms by which lead causes harm are complex and not completely understood, but one important

way it is known to aect children’s brains is by mimicking or competing with other metals such as calcium,

zinc, iron, and copper. Young children, particularly from birth to age 6, require large amounts of these essential

metals for growth and development, especially to build brain cells and send signals throughout the nervous

system. The passage of these metals from the blood into the brain is regulated by the blood-brain barrier—

a cellular membrane that selectively allows some substances, such as oxygen, immune cells, and nutrients, to

pass between the bloodstream and the brain.

Lead can masquerade as these essential metals, moving across

the barrier, taking the place of important metals in the brain and interfering with the growth of brain cells, which

can lead to changes in the way those cells communicate.

Disproportionate Risks and Related Health Disparities

Any child can be aected by lead, but exposure in the United States is unequal across

populations. (See Figure 2.) Race and ethnicity are particularly strongly associated with children’s

risk. A national survey found that African-American children’s average blood lead levels were

well above those of non-Hispanic white and Mexican-American children.

Although the survey

did not control for social and economic factors, other studies have shown that race and ethnicity

are associated with elevated blood lead levels in children regardless of family income. One study

of more than 1 million blood tests from Chicago collected between 1995 and 2013 found that,

after controlling for socioeconomic factors, children from predominantly black, and to a lesser

extent Hispanic, neighborhoods had higher rates of lead poisoning than their white counterparts,

even as blood lead levels fell dramatically citywide. (See the Glossary for the deﬁnition of lead

poisoning used throughout this report.) Another study of children from Rochester, New York,

found that, after adjusting for environmental exposures, behaviors, socioeconomic status,

and dietary intake, black children were at higher risk of elevated blood lead than their peers

of other races.

†

These ﬁndings reﬂect the disparate risk that minority communities face from older housing

with lead paint hazards, a condition that has its origins in unfair lending practices and social

policies, such as redlining—in which even well-qualiﬁed black applicants were treated as too

risky for federally backed mortgages—and racial covenants, which prohibited people of

color from moving into white neighborhoods.

‡

These practices contributed to the isolation

of impoverished communities and people of color in areas with poorer-quality housing,

infrastructure, and air.

One national survey found that the extent of serious lead paint hazards

in U.S. housing diered signiﬁcantly by race and income: Twenty-eight percent of African-

American households and 29 percent of poorer households faced housing-related exposure risks,

compared with 20 percent of white and 18 percent of more auent families, respectively.

Continued on next page

Figure 2

All Children Face Some Exposure Risk, but Racial and

Ethnic Disparities Persist

Share and number of 1-5-year-olds with blood lead levels below and

above 2 μg/dL by race and ethnicity, 2011-14

Note: All numbers are rounded.

Sources: Altarum analysis of National Center for Health Statistics, “National Health and Nutrition Examination

Survey 2011-2012,” accessed May 26, 2017, https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/continuousnhanes/default.

aspx?BeginYear=2011; and National Center for Health Statistics, “National Health and Nutrition Examination

Survey 2013-2014,” accessed May 26, 2017, https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/continuousnhanes/default.

aspx?BeginYear=2013

Continued on next page

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

100%

White

10,184,000

Hispanic

5,225,000

Black

2,787,000

Other

2,108,000

Below 2 µg/dL 2 µg/dL and above

Percentage of children

808,000

9,376,000

428,000

4,797,000

424,000

2,363,000

203,000

1,905,000

Further, American Indian and Alaska Native children are far more likely than other children to be

exposed to potentially lead-contaminated runo and other eects of former mining sites, and in a

2008 study from New York City, foreign-born children were ﬁve times as likely as their U.S.-born

counterparts to have elevated blood lead levels.

Certain ethnic groups also experience disproportionate risk from lead associated with health

remedies and consumer products. Lead and other heavy metals are sometimes added to

traditional medicines used to treat ailments such as arthritis, infertility, upset stomach, menstrual

cramps, teething, and colic. Lead has been found in some candies and spices, such as chili

powder and tamarind. In addition, traditional eye cosmetics are still made with ingredients, such

as kohl, that are high in lead, and the FDA does not allow importation or marketing of these

products in the U.S., though they are sometimes brought in by individual travelers.

Income also inﬂuences rates of lead exposure. According to the CDC, children living in poverty

had signiﬁcantly higher average blood lead levels than their more auent peers.

††

This is in part

because low-income families tend to rent rather than own their homes, and renters are more

likely than owners to face issues associated with inadequate housing, such as lack of complete

plumbing facilities in the unit, have more serious constraints on funding for improvements, and

depend on landlords to make their homes lead-safe.

‡‡

In addition, some evidence suggests that rural communities may be exposed to contaminated

soil resulting from past use of lead in pesticides applied to orchards and other crops; however

published research on these risks is limited.

§§

* William Wheeler and Mary Jean Brown, “Blood Lead Levels in Children Aged 1-5 Years—United States, 1999—

2010,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 62, no. 13 (2013): 245–48, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/

mmwrhtml/mm6213a3.htm.

† Robert J. Sampson and Alix Winter, “The Racial Ecology of Lead Poisoning: Toxic Inequality in Chicago

Neighborhoods, 1995-2013,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 13, no. 2 (2016): 261–83, http://dx.doi.

org/10.1017/S1742058X16000151; Bruce Lanphear et al., “Environmental Lead Exposure During Early Childhood,”

Journal of Pediatrics 140, no. 1 (2002): 40–47, https://dx.doi.org/10.1067/mpd.2002.120513.

‡ Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, “History Matters: Understanding the Role of Policy, Race, and

Real Estate in Today’s Geography of Health Equity and Opportunity in Cuyahoga County” (February 2015), http://

kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/history-of-race-real-estate.pdf.

§ Ibid.; Alex F. Schwartz, “Housing Policy in the United States: An Introduction” (Routledge, Taylor and Francis

Group, 2006): 217–18; Russ P. Lopez, “Public Health, the APHA, and Urban Renewal,” American Journal of Public

Health 99, no. 9 (2009): 1605, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.150136.

|| U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic

Findings” (2011), http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AHHS_Report.pdf.

# Lacey McCormick, “Honoring the River: How Hardrock Mining Impacts Tribal Communities,” National Wildlife

Foundation, news release, April 25, 2013, http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-

Topic/Wildlife/2013/04-25-13-Honoring-the-River-Press-Release.aspx; Parisa Tehranifar et al., “Immigration

and Risk of Childhood Lead Poisoning: Findings From a Case-Control Study of New York City Children,” American

Journal of Public Health 98, no. 1 (2008): 92–97, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2006.093229.

** U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Kohl, Kajal, Al-Kahal, Surma, Tiro, Tozali, or Kwalli: By Any Name, Beware

of Lead Poisoning,” accessed March 6, 2017, https://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/ProductsIngredients/Products/

ucm137250.htm.

†† Wheeler and Brown, “Blood Lead Levels in Children Aged 1-5 Years—United States, 1999–2010.”

‡‡ Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2016” (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University, 2016): 5, 25, http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/ﬁles/jchs_2016_state_of_

the_nations_housing_lowres.pdf.

§§ Carol L. Hanchette, “The Political Ecology of Lead Poisoning in Eastern North Carolina,” Health and Place 14, no.

2 (2008): 214, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2007.06.003; C. Marjorie Aelion et al., “Associations

Between Soil Lead Concentrations and Populations by Race/Ethnicity and Income-to-Poverty Ratio in Urban and

Rural Areas,” Environmental Geochemistry and Health 35, no. 1 (2013): 10, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10653-012-

9472-0.

Recent news reports provide stark reminders that lead continues to aect American communities. In

September 2015, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha found signiﬁcant blood lead increases among children in Flint,

Michigan, which elevated the city’s drinking water crisis to a national public health issue. Nearly a year later,

roughly 270 families in East Chicago, Indiana, were displaced from a public housing development built near

a former smelter and lead reﬁnery, which is now a federally designated Superfund site.

Soil at the housing

complex had lead levels signiﬁcantly above the EPA’s action level—the concentration of lead above which

regulatory or remedial intervention is needed.

Methods

The research team developed a list of more than 100 policies for analysis based on documents from a range of

organizations and agencies, including the 2000 President’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety

Risks to Children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Earthjustice, the American Academy of

Pediatrics, the National Center for Healthy Housing, the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition, the Green

& Healthy Homes Initiative, the Healthy Schools Network, and the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative.

The research team selected policies for analysis based on interviews; focus groups; and a series of meetings

with experts, advocates, and community members. The team asked these stakeholders to identify policies for

inclusion in the study based on their public health and health equity value and, noting the urgency of action,

their potential to be implemented within 18-36 months. Additionally, the team chose policies with the

strongest evidence base.

Priority was placed on those that related most directly to preventing children from coming into contact with lead

and enabling those who have already been exposed to access services to help improve their lifelong outcomes.

The analysis included qualitative and quantitative research organized according to a modiﬁed Sequential

Explanatory approach, to develop an understanding of the relevant social, economic, and cultural contexts for

lead exposure in children.

Studies that use both qualitative and quantitative methods are strengthened by the

combination because they are able to present information from multiple perspectives. Qualitative data collection,

including focus groups, listening sessions, and interviews, was conducted ﬁrst, followed by quantitative analyses

of costs and beneﬁts.

See the appendix for an in-depth discussion of the methodology used for this report.

Quantitative models

Child Trends, a nonproﬁt research center focused on child development, led the quantitative work, in partnership

with Altarum Institute, a nonproﬁt health systems research organization, and the Urban Institute, a nonproﬁt

economic and policy research organization.

The study team quantitatively modeled only those prevention interventions for which data on the scope of

exposure and the eectiveness of the policy were readily available. For example, data exist on the extent of lead

paint, lead service lines, and contaminated dust in homes, as well as on the eectiveness of interventions to

address these hazards. However, similarly comprehensive information for these threats and policies to mitigate

them in schools and child care facilities was not available. Exposure from sources not tied to a speciﬁc structure,

such as consumer products and food, was also dicult to estimate, and data regarding the eectiveness of

interventions targeted at those sources were lacking. Despite these data constraints, in recognition of the reality

that many sources of lead contribute to childhood lead exposure, the team studied those hazards for which

quantitative data were not available using the qualitative methods described later in this chapter. The team

selected the inputs for the models from a literature search that identiﬁed 176 peer-reviewed articles related to the

policies analyzed. The team used the most rigorous literature available as the basis for the quantitative models.

Child Trends and the Urban Institute used the Social Genome Model (SGM), which examines how actions at

developmentally signiﬁcant life stages reverberate through a person’s life, to predict the eects of policies to

prevent harmful blood lead levels and of interventions for lead-exposed children.

The SGM simulated the

eects of the prevention and response policies on educational attainment, grade point average, teen parenthood,

criminal convictions, and lifetime family income. Using a data set of 8,056 children, the SGM tracks lifelong

development starting at birth and employs statistical techniques to assess the relationships between children’s

early life circumstances and later outcomes. The studied eects build on one another over a child’s life:

Circumstances at birth inﬂuence early childhood, which in turn aects middle childhood circumstances, which

translate into a child’s situation in adolescence, and so on well into adulthood. For example, robust research

shows that, after controlling for other factors, children with lower blood lead levels have better early reading

scores than those with higher levels.

The SGM calculates how this better reading contributes to greater

educational attainment and higher income later in life.

The SGM does not include information on children’s blood lead levels, so the team used data from the

two most recent editions (2011-14) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES),

a national population-based survey, to assign blood lead levels to children based on their social and

demographic characteristics.

The modeling team used data from the literature to determine the change in children’s blood lead that could be

expected as a result of the policy interventions and how it would aect reading, math, and behavior. The team

then ran the SGM to estimate how those eects would, in turn, impact later life outcomes, such as graduation

rates, criminal convictions, and teen pregnancy. The SGM was used to examine ﬁve interventions for which

eect size estimates were available: lead service line replacement; lead paint hazard control; renovation, repair,

and painting rule enforcement; removal of lead from aviation gas; and programs for children with a history of

lead exposure. The SGM outputs for this ﬁnal intervention are presented in the body of the report, while for

brevity, the ﬁndings from the ﬁrst four analyses may be found in the appendix.

The analysis also employed Altarum Institute’s Value of Prevention (VP) tool, a spreadsheet-based application,

which synthesizes research ﬁndings and national data sets to quantify the ﬁnancial and health impacts of various

preventive investments. The tool has been applied to investigating the value of smoking and obesity prevention,

and of early childhood education. For this study, the team synthesized four types of data to estimate the costs

and beneﬁts of the four prevention policies. The tool integrated published ﬁndings on the eect of an intervention

on blood lead levels and information on the health and social impacts of lead exposure to infer later-life health

status, health care costs, and incarceration rates; and data on the eect of lead on IQ and on the relationship

between IQ and income to predict lifetime earnings.

The research team modeled the beneﬁts for the cohort of children born in 2018, the next full year that most

closely approximates the blood lead level data from the 2011-14 NHANES. According to those data, the mean

blood lead level for the population of children 1-5 was 1.1 μg/dL.

These analyses provided an estimate of the beneﬁts of each policy to society and to the federal and state

and local governments. These are referred to in the report as “future beneﬁts” and are discounted at a rate of

3 percent per year to account for the changing value of money over time.

To better understand and describe any uncertainty within the ﬁndings, the modeling team conducted two

additional analyses. First, it modeled the eects of preventing blood lead levels from rising above 0 μg/dL as

a bounding exercise to provide an upper limit on the potential impacts of the intervention policies. Second, to

address uncertainties that could not be tested by that method, the team performed quantitative sensitivity

analyses to clarify how changes in the assumptions, coecients, and data points could aect the overall results.

(See the appendix for details.)

Qualitative methods

Through qualitative approaches, researchers can identify stakeholder concerns, explain why and how

phenomena occur, and gauge the range of eects. These methods also provide context for quantiﬁable

information and enable an examination of processes and experiences along with outcomes.

In addition to the research literature gathered for the quantitative models, the study team identiﬁed and reviewed

other studies across a range of methods and topics that could help with screening policies and formulating

recommendations. Across the two literature searches, the team identiﬁed roughly 700 peer-reviewed articles.

Through 16 focus groups held in Baltimore; Chicago; Flint; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; New Orleans; Philadelphia;

and Warren, Arkansas, the team collected feedback from at least 129 community members, including landlords

(16 participants), parents of children with high blood lead levels, and other concerned citizens (113 participants).

The team gathered basic demographic information from participants in the parents and concerned citizens

groups using a brief survey. (See Table A.3 for complete results.) The team also held two conference

calls with eight parents of lead-poisoned children to capture their experiences navigating the medical and

education systems.

The research team developed a list of themes from the discussion guides for the focus groups. The team

analyzed the ﬁeld notes and transcriptions from each focus group to identify additional common themes and

keywords to add to the list and then summarized the ﬁndings and linked those to the quantitative results to

provide context for the economic information. Perhaps more importantly, the qualitative analysis allowed the

team to identify barriers to implementing the recommendations as well as steps to mitigate those challenges

and support eective remediation of lead exposure risks.

In addition, the research team gathered more insight into the eects of childhood lead exposure and potential

policy interventions through ﬁve national online listening sessions. (See the appendix for details on participants

and methodologies for these events.) Unstructured conversations with experts provided additional input for

the report.

Finally, the Trust for America’s Health and the National Center for Healthy Housing developed case studies to

highlight examples of policies in action and lessons learned from across the country. The team selected the case

studies based on their relevance to the policies analyzed and their applicability to other jurisdictions. (See the

“Policy in Action” listings in the Table of Contents.)

Study limitations

Qualitative data limitations

Obtaining input from all stakeholder groups that could be aected by the recommendations was beyond the

scope of the study. Eorts were made to broadly advertise the national listening sessions to ensure that the

study included diverse stakeholder perspectives, but in general, school administrators, the aviation industry, and

owners of secondary smelters did not respond and so are not as well represented as the public health community.

Further, although the team solicited feedback through the advisory committee and focus groups from several

representatives of water utilities, property management ﬁrms, renovation contractors, child care operators, and

rental property owners, fewer of these groups’ perspectives were included than of public health professionals and

community-based organizations. Finally, the focus group locations and project advisers were subject to selection

bias, because existing relationships and networks were leveraged during the selection process. When possible,

the team controlled for this by seeking input from a broad array of partners.

Quantitative model limitations

Blood lead data for the 2018 birth cohort

The team relied on the two most recent NHANES surveys (2011-14) to establish children’s baseline blood lead,

which, based on historical trends, may be higher than what will be seen among the 2018 birth cohort. However,

data from the CDC lead surveillance program indicate a leveling-o between 2009 and 2015 of the number of

children with blood lead levels above 10 μg/dL,

suggesting that using the NHANES data is appropriate to

predict 2018 blood lead levels.

Current exposure levels

Recent epidemiologic data on the relative contribution to blood lead levels of dierent environmental sources are

scarce. Therefore, the study team could not determine whether the proportion of exposure coming from dierent

sources has changed or what adjustments would be necessary to reﬂect such shifts.

Data on the impact of interventions

In light of today’s lower blood lead levels and the decreased amount of lead in the environment, the team took

several precautions to avoid overestimating the beneﬁts of exposure prevention, including using multistep

processes to estimate the relationship between lead in the environment and in blood and the most recent data

available on the eectiveness of the interventions, relying on studies of children with lower mean blood lead

levels, and modeling dierent baseline levels of lead in the environment.

For the lead paint hazard control and drinking water interventions, instead of relying on older epidemiologic

studies of environmental and blood lead levels, the team used a two-part process to establish ﬁrst the

relationship between the interventions and levels of lead in the environment and, second, the association

between those environmental levels and the amount of lead in a child’s blood. The team used an estimate from

a large national evaluation of the eect of lead paint hazard control on dust lead levels in the home and then

used corresponding blood lead level reductions from a 2009 study. In addition, the team modeled the beneﬁts

of the intervention based on two starting levels of lead in dust on ﬂoors; 20 and 10 μg/sq ft.

The team used a similar process for determining the relationship between removing lead drinking water

lines, levels of lead in water, and lead in a child’s blood. The team also modeled two baseline water lead level

scenarios, 11.4 ppb and 5 ppb, to show a range of eects of replacing lead service lines depending on baseline

water lead levels.

For renovation, repair, and painting, the team relied on a 2008 EPA model that estimated the eects of

preventing acute exposure from unsafe practices.

For aviation gas, the team relied on a study of Michigan children from 2001 to 2009 with a relatively low

mean blood lead level of 2.98 μg/dL.

The relationship between current blood lead levels and cognitive and behavioral outcomes

The models rely on estimates of the relationship between blood lead levels and outcomes such as IQ, cognition,

and behavior from older studies that were conducted when mean blood lead levels were higher. Although

few studies capture the relationship between IQ and blood lead levels below 2 μg/dL, several have found a

relationship at mean levels of 3 to 5 μg/dL.

Not only do low blood lead levels result in IQ changes, but evidence

suggests that IQ losses from lead exposure may be greater at lower blood levels.

An increase in blood lead

from less than 1 to 10 μg/dL is associated with a loss of 6 IQ points, compared with 2 points lost from a rise from

10 μg/dL to 20.

(See appendix for further discussion of the impacts of low-level lead exposure on IQ.)

To avoid potentially overstating the blood lead-to-IQ impact for today’s population of children, the team modeled

dierent eect sizes depending on the predicted blood lead level of a child. For the lowest blood lead category

of less than 5 μg/dL, the team relied only on studies with a mean level below 5 μg/dL. Although limited data exist

on the relative eect sizes on IQ of blood levels below 2 μg/dL, the team assumed that the linear relationship

established in the literature for levels between 5 and 2 μg/dL continued below 2 μg/dL. These strategies—

using studies with the closest possible mean to today’s blood lead levels and assuming a linear trend down to

0 μg/dL—are identical to those used by the EPA for its 2008 clean air regulations.

Similarly, the team considered 14 estimates of the relationship between blood lead and reading and math scores,

all but two of which were based on samples of children with mean blood lead levels of 5 μg/dL or lower.

Among

the studies, two found that the rate of decline in reading scores increased at lower blood lead levels, while the

others found a linear relationship, even in children with low blood lead levels. The team also reviewed eight

estimates of the eect size of blood lead on behavioral outcomes: ﬁve from study samples with mean blood levels

below 6 μg/dL, and three based on samples with higher mean levels.

Other limitations

Data for the numbers of children at risk from leaded aviation gas and living in homes with leaded drinking

water pipes as well as for those children’s blood lead levels were incomplete. The beneﬁts only account for the

child residing in a treated home; they exclude children who might visit, except where otherwise noted. Further,

the NHANES, which was used to establish the baseline blood lead levels for children in the quantitative models,

estimates levels nationally rather than by smaller geographic areas such as neighborhoods, and the SGM is

based on a population with fewer immigrants than the current U.S. population. These dierences may mean

that predictions in this study may understate or overstate eects for certain communities.

In addition, the cost-beneﬁt ratios exclude the cost of government administration for the studied interventions

because they could be operated by many levels of government or the private sector at widely varying

costs. Where available, information about program administration expenses is included in the discussion

of each intervention.

Further, outcome predictions assume complete implementation of each intervention, but, in reality, a portion

of targeted homes would probably not receive a given remediation because of refusal, ﬁnancial barriers, or other

factors. As a result, total beneﬁts, total costs, and net beneﬁts would be lower, while cost-beneﬁt ratios and

per-child beneﬁts would remain the same.

Total prevention of lead poisoning

I guess there must have been some public health campaigning at one

point where they said paint chips are it! Because everybody got that

message. It was like Smokey the Bear. But they don’t understand that

it’s so much broader than that. … It’s in the soil. It’s [in] the air. It’s in

your pipes.”

—New Orleans resident

The team, with guidance from advisers and key stakeholders, selected policies for analysis that promised the

greatest public health and equity beneﬁts and that could be adopted, though not necessarily fully implemented,

in 18 to 36 months, given the urgent need for action.

Lead is ubiquitous; past and present uses challenge eradication eorts

Many sources and pathways add to the amount of lead in a child’s blood, including releases from previous

exposure stored in a child’s bones. In addition, individual children’s exposures vary based on several factors,

including location, age, intake of food and water, mouthing behavior, and nutritional status. Evidence also

suggests that for children with blood lead levels below 10 μg/dL, “no single exposure source predominates,”

underscoring the need for a comprehensive response.

Kev Klopper/Getty Images

Lead in Everyday Items

To the surprise of many people, lead continues to be used in a variety of everyday consumer and

commercial goods. Although the team found no data to characterize the extent to which these

sources present a population-level health risk, dozens of case studies have documented acute

instances of child lead poisoning and even death from a range of products, including candies,

health remedies, cosmetics, and spices.

For example, one national survey found that imported

candy contributed 10 percent of dietary lead for 2- to 6-year-old children.

†

In addition, Greta,

a health remedy used in some Hispanic cultures to treat upset stomach, contains high levels

of lead and has accounted for several cases of lead poisoning;

‡

Tiro, an African eye cosmetic,

has been found to contain 82 percent lead and has sickened at least one child in the U.S.;

and

Litargirio (also known as litharge or lead monoxide), a Central American antiperspirant and

deodorant, poisoned two siblings in Rhode Island in 2003. Further, between 2010 and 2014,

six poisoning cases were attributed to lead-contaminated spices, including turmeric.

Lead compounds, such as lead oxide, also are sometimes used in pottery glazes because

they allow for a broader range of ﬁring temperatures. However, when ﬁred at inadequate or

uncontrolled temperatures, the lead may not be not fully incorporated into the glaze and can

leach into food.

Also, many commercially available food products contain small amounts of

lead, including some marketed for infants and toddlers.

The allowable amount of lead for many

foods is based on consultation with other countries and on what is achievable for members of

an international committee called the Codex Alimentarius General Standard for Contaminants

and Toxins in Food and Feed.

††

In focus groups, participants worried about lead contamination of food, including imported

spices, breast milk, toys, jewelry, and other products, wanted improved labeling, and expressed

concerns for refugees and a desire to ban lead from health remedies. They also identiﬁed a need

for culturally and linguistically appropriate education eorts to reach recent immigrants and

refugee families with information about sources of lead in consumer goods. According to one

Spanish-speaking participant from Flint, Michigan, “There isn’t any information about lead in

Spanish here.” In general, participants wanted increased testing and labeling of food products

containing lead and improved health communication about related risks.

California has led U.S. eorts to ban lead from a range of products beginning with a 1986 law,

known as Proposition 65, which requires manufacturers, retailers, and other businesses to notify

consumers when they are being exposed to toxic chemicals, including lead. More recently, the

state has enacted additional policies:

• The 2006 Lead-Containing Jewelry Law requires jewelry and components, such as dyes and

crystal, that is sold, shipped, or manufactured for sale in California to meet limits set by the

state under a 2004 consent judgment that applied to a number of manufacturers, retailers,

and distributors.

‡‡

Continued on next page

• A 2010 law restricted the use of heavy metals including lead in motor vehicle brake pads to

no more than 0.1 percent by weight. In January 2015, brake manufacturers agreed that all

brake pads sold in the United States will meet California standards.

§§

• The 2003 Toxics in Packaging Prevention Act, which limited harmful substances in

packaging, originally exempted lead in paint or applied ceramic decoration on glass bottles,

but a 2008 amendment banned such uses in excess of 600 ppm.

|| ||

• To protect wildlife, a 2013 law required that only lead-free ammunition be used for hunting

with a ﬁrearm.

* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Childhood Lead Poisoning Associated With Tamarind Candy and Folk

Remedies—California, 1999–2000”; Whitney Cowell et al., “Ground Turmeric as a Source of Lead Exposure in the

United States,” Public Health Reports 132, no. 3 (2017): 289–93, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0033354917700109.

† S.K. Egan et al., “U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Total Diet Study: Intake of Nutritional and Toxic Elements,”

Food Additives and Contaminants 19, no. 2 (2002): 103–25.

‡ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Lead Poisoning Associated With Ayurvedic Medications—Five

States, 2000–2003.”

§ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Infant Lead Poisoning Associated With Use of Tiro, an Eye Cosmetic

From Nigeria—Boston, Massachusetts, 2011,” Aug. 3, 2012, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/

mm6130a3.htm.

|| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Lead Poisoning Associated With Use of Litargirio—Rhode Island,

2003,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, March 11, 2005, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/

mm5409a5.htm; Whitney Cowell et al., “Ground Turmeric as a Source of Lead Exposure in the United States.”

# U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Guidance for Industry: The Safety of Imported Traditional Pottery Intended

for Use With Food and the Use of the Term ‘Lead Free’ in the Labeling of Pottery; and Proper Identiﬁcation of

Ornamental and Decorative Ceramicware,” accessed Feb. 6, 2017, http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/

GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/ucm214740.htm.

** U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Total Diet Study, Elements Results Statistics, Market Baskets 2006 through

2011” (College Park, MD: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2014), https://www.fda.gov/downloads/food...

totaldietstudy/ucm184301.pdf.

†† Codex Alimentarius Commission, “Report of the Ninth Session of the Codex Committee on Contaminants in

Foods” (New Delhi, India, March 16–20, 2015), ftp://ftp.fao.org/codex/reports/reports_2015/REP15_CFe.pdf.

‡‡ California Department of Toxic Substances Control, “History of the Law,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, http://www.dtsc.

ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/ToxicsInProducts/upload/History-of-the-Law1.pdf.

§§ California Department of Toxic Substances Control, “Brake Pad Legislation,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, http://

www.dtsc.ca.gov/SCP/BrakePadLegislation.cfm; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Copper Mitigation in

Watersheds and Waterways,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-11/

documents/copper_brakepads_mou.pdf.

|| || California Department of Toxic Substances Control, “Senate Bill (SB) 774 and Changes to the Toxics in Packaging

Prevention Act,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, https://www.dtsc.ca.gov/ToxicsInPackaging/upload/TIP_FS_SB-774_

Changes.pdf.

## California Fish and Game Commission, “Prohibition on the Use of Lead Projectiles and Ammunition Using

Lead Projectiles for the Take of Wildlife,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, http://www.fgc.ca.gov/regulations/current/

mammalregs.aspx#250_1.

Modeling total prevention

The research team modeled interventions to prevent children’s blood lead levels from exceeding zero. Notably,

given the diverse sources of lead in the environment and the widely varied exposure risks across populations,

a zero blood lead level is aspirational. However, the team chose to model a zero level to establish the maximum

possible beneﬁts that could be realized under a total prevention scenario. Using the VP Tool, the team

determined that the discounted future societal beneﬁts of such hypothetical total prevention would be $84 billion

for the 2018 birth cohort. (See Table 1.)

Table 1

Keeping Blood Lead Levels of Children Born in 2018 at Zero Would

Generate $84 Billion in Beneﬁts

Future savings and increased earnings by source and recipient

Beneﬁt Value (in billions)

Increased lifetime earnings for entire 2018 cohort $77.2

Health savings $1.7

Education savings $1.9

Quality-adjusted life years beneﬁts $3.1

Total future beneﬁts $84.0

Share to the federal government $18.5

Share to state and local governments $9.6

Share to households, private sector, and other nongovernmental entities $55.9

Notes: Analysis is based on the 2018 birth cohort, estimated at approximately 4 million children. Future beneﬁts are discounted at 3 percent

per year to account for the changing value of money over time. Quality-adjusted life years is the number of additional healthy years of life

resulting from an intervention, which the research team conservatively valued at $50,000 for each additional year of healthy life. Total future

beneﬁts include small changes in incarceration costs, which are not itemized in the table.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation. See the appendix for details on the model methodology and underlying

data sources.

The beneﬁts include earnings associated with greater employment and higher-paying jobs and lower public

spending on short- and long-term health care costs, such as for testing and treating lead-exposed children,

doctor visits, and hypertension and cardiovascular disease later in life. The beneﬁts also include savings to the

education system, speciﬁcally, reduced spending on special education and grade repetition. The calculations also

capture beneﬁts from quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)—the number of additional healthy years of life resulting

from an intervention—which the research team conservatively valued at $50,000 each.

Finally, the estimated

future beneﬁts also include $13 million in savings from decreased incarceration based on a longitudinal study

that linked blood lead levels to arrest rates.

However, that study only documented eects for blood lead above

6 μg/dL, a level that few children experience today, so the predicted beneﬁts associated with reduced criminal

involvement are relatively small. The model did not account for other potential cost reductions associated with

crime and criminal justice, such as from fewer arrests, so the beneﬁt estimates may be conservative.

Of the $84 billion in future beneﬁts for the 2018 birth cohort, about $77 billion comes from increased earnings,

most of which accrues to families and the private sector, with a portion also going to federal, state, and local

governments as increased tax revenue. Of the $19 billion federal share, nearly $15 billion is in the form of

increased tax collections, with the remaining $4 billion coming from reduced spending on education, health

care, and social support programs. The $10 billion for state and local governments includes about $4 billion from

increased tax revenue and roughly $6 billion in decreases in government expenditures. This analysis predicts that

increased employment and wages would reduce demand for government assistance, leading to lower spending

on social support programs, which is counted as a beneﬁt for federal, state, and local governments. However,

because the savings result in a loss to the citizens who would receive payments, the reduced government

spending is not included in the $84 billion beneﬁt total.

Further, assuming no changes to current programs and policies, NHANES data predict that without the

intervention, from ages 1-5, 90.8 percent of the cohort would have blood lead levels below 2 μg/dL; 8.0 percent

would be between 2 and 5; 0.9 percent between 5 and 10; and 0.3 percent above 10. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3

Most Beneﬁts of Exposure Prevention Accrue for Children Whose

Blood Lead Would Otherwise Be Below 2 µg/dL

Economic gains by avoided blood lead levels and number of children

Notes: Without intervention, the blood lead level distribution at ages 1-5 for the 2018 birth cohort would be 14,000 children with blood lead

levels greater than 10 μg/dL, 34,000 between 5 and 9.9 μg/dL, 318,000 between 2 and 4.9, and 3,612,000 between 0 and 1.9.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation

$2.6 B

10+ µg/dL

$3.8 B

5-9.9 µg/dL

$60.4 B

0-1.9 ug/dL

$17.1 B

2-4.9 µg/dL

If federal investment of $80 billion was sucient to prevent the 2018 cohort’s blood lead from exceeding zero,

estimated societal beneﬁts would be $1.05 per $1 invested; if the necessary investment proved smaller, the

cost-beneﬁt ratio would be greater. Additionally, permanent removal of lead hazards would aect future cohorts,

and those beneﬁts would be in addition to the estimates provided in this analysis.

Additionally, the research team used the SGM to explore the eects of full prevention on children’s educational

attainment and likelihood of risky behaviors, such as criminal activity. The model indicated that holding

blood lead levels at zero would improve high school and college graduation rates, and decrease rates of teen

parenthood and criminal conviction. (See Table 2.)

Outcome All children born in 2018

Children born in 2018 whose blood

lead levels would be expected to rise

above 2 μg/dL in early childhood

Baseline

conditions

Total

prevention

Children

beneﬁting

Baseline

conditions

Total

prevention

Children

beneﬁting

Average high school GPA 2.93 2.94 N /A 2.74 2.78 N/A

Percentage

and number

of children

Earn high school

diplomas

83.7% 84.0% 14,600 74.4% 75.6% 4,500

Become teen

parents

13.5% 13.3% 6,000 20.1% 19.6% 1,900

Be convicted

of crimes

17.2% 16.9% 15,500 22.0% 20.7% 4,700

Complete 4-year

college degrees

26.7% 27.1% 15,200 17.0% 18.3% 4,700

Notes: Analysis is based on the SGM’s sample of about 8,000 children, drawn from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

dataset. To arrive at the number of children positively aected, the research team applied the percentage point dierences between baseline

conditions and total prevention to the roughly 4 million children expected to be born in 2018 and to the roughly 365,000 of them whose

blood lead levels would probably exceed 2 μg/dL. See the appendix for information on the model and methodology.

Source: Social Genome Model analysis by Child Trends and the Urban Institute

Table 2

Keeping Blood Lead Levels at Zero Among Children Born in 2018

Would Improve Educational and Social Outcomes

Eects on education, teen parenthood, and crime

The modeling team examined the impact of the total prevention scenario on the IQs of children born between

2018 and 2023 using a similar methodology to that presented by Gilbert and Weiss and found that, on average,

preventing exposure would avoid the loss of 1.27 IQ points per child.

A 1.27-point dierence would be dicult to

discern between two children, but preventing lead exposure would reduce the number of intellectually challenged

children, those with IQs below 70, by about 101,000 or 18.5 percent and would increase the number of children

in the gifted category, above 130 IQ points, by about 119,000 or 22 percent across six birth cohorts. Findings from

a recent study suggest that the impact of childhood lead exposure on IQ persists into adulthood, which lends

support to the ﬁndings of these models that preventing exposure and mitigating the eects of lead for young

children would improve their outcomes later in life.

Drinking water

[Before the Flint, Michigan, case], I never thought we could get lead

poisoning from water. I was totally ignorant about that.”

—Flint focus group participant

Sources of contamination in drinking water include corrosion of lead service lines (LSLs), brass plumbing ﬁxtures,

and lead solder installed before Congress limited the use of lead in plumbing and pipes in 1986.

Although indoor

plumbing ﬁxtures and lead solder can also contribute to elevated lead levels in water, the research indicates that

LSLs account for the largest share of lead in water.

Importantly, observational studies show that U.S. residences

with LSLs are at even greater risk if the techniques used to manage the corrosivity of water are not eective.

A robust body of academic literature from the U.S. and Canada links lead in drinking water to increases in blood

lead levels.

For example, one cross-sectional study

of 183 children randomly selected from urban areas found

that an increase in water lead concentrations from background levels to 15 ppb was associated with a nearly

14 percent jump in the share of children with estimated blood lead over 10 μg/dL.

Participants in all 16 focus

groups said lead in drinking water at homes, schools, and child care facilities was a primary concern, and several

parents of lead-exposed children said water was the source of their children’s exposure.

Lead in Water and Infant Health

Infants can ingest lead through breast milk and water used to reconstitute powdered formula.

Lead stored in bones can release into a mother’s blood, and a fraction (up to 3 percent) of

that lead can transfer to breast milk.

Breastfeeding provides infants and mothers with many

health beneﬁts, and weighing those against the adverse eects of lead exposure, the CDC

recommends mothers with blood lead levels below 40 μg/dL continue to breastfeed.

†

situations where breast milk is supplemented with or replaced by formula, caregivers should

take steps to avoid using water contaminated by lead to reconstitute formula, such as ﬂushing

the tap or using bottled or ﬁltered water, and never using water from the hot tap.

‡

* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Guidelines for the Identiﬁcation and Management of Lead Exposure

in Pregnant and Lactating Women” (Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), https://www.

cdc.gov/nceh/lead/publications/leadandpregnancy2010.pdf.

† Ibid.

‡ Ibid.

The EPA began requiring water utilities to manage lead under its 1991 Lead and Copper Rule.

The rule set forth

“corrosion control” as the primary method for reducing lead in water in the United States. This technique involves

treating water with chemicals, such as orthophosphates, that create a barrier between the pipes and the water

in them or adjusting the pH or hardness of water. Since the rule’s inception, corrosion control has dramatically

decreased water lead levels in the U.S., but the various methods can dier substantially in eectiveness, so the

EPA requires utilities to monitor selected water quality parameters, such as pH.

The rule also mandated that water utilities periodically test lead concentrations across a sample of customer taps

that are deemed more likely to have elevated levels based on the presence of LSLs, other lead pipes, or any pipes

with lead solder and to report the results to consumers. However, the rule does not require that all customer taps

be tested. Instead, systems are only obligated to sample 10 percent of their taps. The crisis in Flint shed light

on the shortcomings of the current approach to managing lead in water. The EPA acknowledged challenges in a

document concerning possible revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule, which cited issues including complexity,

sampling protocols, a lack of attention to speciﬁc areas such as schools, and too much ﬂexibility regarding

corrosion control implementation and monitoring.

Jamie Grill/Blend Images

Water fountains in many public schools have not been tested for lead risks.

Drinking Water in Schools and Child Care Facilities

Millions of children spend signiﬁcant time in school and child care facilities each day, making

these places important potential sources of exposure.

• About 50.4 million children attend public school and nearly 4.3 million children under 5 are

served annually by center- and home-based child care providers.

• Case studies of school drinking water have found dramatic variation: A 2015 study of

3,100 taps across 63 Seattle schools found lead levels from less than 1 ppb to 1,600 ppb; an

analysis of ﬁrst-draw samples—those taken after water sat in the pipes overnight—from the

Los Angeles Uniﬁed School District revealed a range of 0.2 to 13,000 ppb; a 2004 study of

Philadelphia schools found that about 57 percent of buildings had water lead above the EPA

action level of 20 ppb, and 29 percent had water with mean levels over 50 ppb; and a report

determined that a third of Chicago schools tested (30 percent of taps) had at least one

sample above 15 ppb.

†

• The average age of U.S. public schools is 44 years, but many have undergone major

renovations, putting their “functional” age closer to 19 years on average. Despite the

upgrades, the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017 rated school infrastructure and

drinking water quality as poor.

‡

Continued on next page

Damita Delimont/Getty Images

• About 10 percent (roughly 8,000) of the nation’s schools and child care facilities maintain

their own water supplies and are regulated under the Lead and Copper Rule, but because the

rule only requires a sampling of taps across the community, many schools may never have

been tested. Approximately 98,000 public schools and 500,000 child care facilities are

excluded from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act,

but in its 3Ts (training, testing, telling)

guidance, the EPA recommends testing and a standard of 20 ppb.

• The CDC School Health Policies and Practices Survey’s 2014 data show that

nationwide, fewer than half (46 percent) of schools test their drinking water for lead

and other contaminants.

In the absence of an overarching law or regulation governing drinking water in public schools

and licensed child care facilities, the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act provides a possible

avenue to address lead risks. The act requires schools and child care programs that participate

in the National School Lunch (NSLP) and Child and Adult Care Food (CACFP) programs,

respectively, to provide children with free potable water.

The NSLP operates in more than

100,000 public and nonproﬁt private schools and residential child care institutions, and in

2012, it provided low- or no-cost lunches to more than 31 million children each school day.

CACFP supplied meals and snacks for more than 4.1 million children in child care settings each

day in 2015.

††

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees both programs, provides guidance

related to drinking water and has encouraged schools and child care facilities to follow the

EPA’s testing recommendations, but it has not deﬁned the term “potable” to include safety from

the risks of lead above the EPA’s guidance of 20 ppb.

‡‡

The American Academy of Pediatrics

recommends a standard of 1 ppb lead in water from school drinking fountains, and in March

2017, Health Canada published for public comment a maximum allowable concentration of

lead in water for schools and child care providers of 5 ppb,

§§

either of which could serve as an

updated standard for the U.S.

Providing drinking water that meets such a health-based action level could help protect low-

income children served by these programs who are at increased risk of lead exposure.

Many focus group participants raised concerns that school drinking fountains were a potential

source of lead, but they also cited drawbacks to eorts to provide alternative sources of drinking

water, such as bottled water. For example, schools may need to provide cups, and in some cases

parents had to shoulder additional costs. Participants suggested adding ﬁlters to fountains or

installing ﬁltered-water stations that allow students to reﬁll personal water bottles.

Continued on next page

Concern over contaminated water in schools led to the introduction of 82 bills in 12 states and

the District of Columbia in 2016,

|| ||

and several school districts began testing tap water and

replacing or shutting down fountains with high lead levels:

• At least nine states and the district took action to test school drinking water at the tap,

including the Oregon Health Authority, which posted its results online.

• Governor Jerry Brown (D) of California issued an executive order requiring all public water

systems to oer free testing to schools in their service areas and included $9.5 million for

remediation in the state budget.

• Massachusetts appropriated $2 million for voluntary school testing.

• Illinois is developing rules for mandatory testing, notiﬁcation, and mitigation in all licensed

child care homes and centers.

• New York, which requires testing and remediation of taps in schools and school-based child

care, has included funds for the eort in its state budget, and posts results online.

• Rhode Island’s General Assembly passed the Lead and Copper Drinking Water Protection

Act in June 2016, requiring schools, day care providers, public playgrounds, shelters and

foster homes with children under 6, and other state facilities to certify that drinking water

conduits are lead-safe. The act also directs state inspectors to conduct annual lead and

copper tests at these locations.

***

* National Center for Education Statistics, “Digest of Education Statistics” (2016), Table 105.20, https://nces.ed.gov/

programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_105.20.asp?current=yes; U.S. Census Bureau, “Who’s Minding the Kids? Child

Care Arrangements: Spring 2011” (April 2013), https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf.

† U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Seattle, WA: Arsenic in Public Schools” (Washington: U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, September 2015), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-09/documents/

casestudy_seattle.pdf; Joel Grover and Matt Goldberg, “School Water Investigation—Part 2,” NBC Los Angeles,

Oct. 30, 2008, http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/School_Water_Investigation_-_Part_2.html; S. Bryant, “Lead-

Contaminated Drinking Waters in the Public Schools of Philadelphia,” Journal of Toxicology: Clinical Toxicology 42, no.

3 (2004): 287–94; Juan Perez Jr., “CPS Is Testing Schools for High Lead Levels in Water: What You Should Know”

Chicago Tribune, June 19, 2016, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-schools-lead-

explainer-met-20160619-story.html.

‡ Debbie Alexander and Laurie Lewis, “Condition of America’s Public School Facilities: 2012-2013 (NCES 2014-

0222),” U.S. Department of Education (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, 2014), https://nces.

ed.gov/pubs2014/2014022.pdf; American Society of Civil Engineers, “2017 Infrastructure Report Card,” accessed

May 19, 2017, https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/americas-grades.

§ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Controlling for Lead in Schools: A Summary of State Programs”

(Washington: EPA, Oce of Water, 2004), EPA-810-R-04-00, accessed Jan. 22, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/

sites/production/ﬁles/2015-09/documents/report_lcmr_schoolssummary.pdf; U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency, “Lead in Drinking Water in Schools and Childcare Facilities,” accessed June 5, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/

dwreginfo/lead-drinking-water-schools-and-childcare-facilities.

Continued on next page

|| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “3Ts for Reducing Lead in Drinking Water in Schools” (Washington:

EPA, 2006), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-09/documents/toolkit_leadschools_guide_3ts_

leadschools.pdf.

# Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “School Health Policies and Practice Study: Results From the School

Health Policies and Practices Study, 2014” (Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015): 119, http://

www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/shpps/pdf/shpps-508-ﬁnal_101315.pdf.

** Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-296, 124 Stat. 3183 (2010), Section 221 (u) 2.

†† U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Program Information Report (Key Data)” (Washington: USDA, 2016), http://www.

fns.usda.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/datastatistics/keydata-january-2016.pdf; U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Child

and Adult Care Food Program: Why CACFP Is Important,” accessed Feb. 4, 2017, http://www.fns.usda.gov/cacfp/

why-cacfp-important.

‡‡ U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Resources for Making Potable Water Available in Schools and Child Care

Facilities,” Memo Code SP 49—2016, CACFP 18—2016 (Alexandria, VA: USDA, Food and Nutrition Service, July 20,

2016), http://media.wix.com/ugd/9c073b_31708a4607294627a28777bc30668936.pdf.

§§ Health Canada, “Lead in Drinking Water” (October 2016), http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-system-

systeme-sante/consultations/lead-drinking-water-plomb-eau-potable/alt/lead-drinking-water-plomb-eau-

potable-03-01-2017-eng.pdf.

|| || National Conference of State Legislatures, “State Legislation on Lead, Lead in Water, Lead in Schools 2016-2017,”

February 2017.

## “Drinking Water Test Results: Oregon Schools,” Oregon Health Authority (2016), http://geo.maps.arcgis.com/apps/

MapSeries/index.html?appid=6a4f2b6001bd474ca7d0a7f0c2552f57.

*** State of Rhode Island, “An Act Relating to Waters and Navigation—Lead and Copper Drinking Water Protection

Act,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017; State of Rhode Island General Assembly, “Assembly Passes Rep. Naughton Bill to Test

Public Drinking Water for Lead, Copper Contamination,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/

BillText16/HouseText16/H8127.pdf.

Residential lead service line replacement

Under the Lead and Copper Rule, when testing ﬁnds lead concentrations that exceed the 15 ppb action level

in more than 10 percent of the samples, the utility must evaluate its corrosion control practices, conduct

public education, and initiate LSL replacement. Water systems removing LSLs must oer property owners the

opportunity to replace their portion of the line at the same time. But because owners cannot be compelled to pay

for replacement of their lines, the public portion is often all that gets updated.

However, research showing that lead concentrations increase during and after such partial remediation has

raised concerns about safety.

For example, one analysis based on an event in Washington, DC, found that

children living in homes with lead in at least some part of their service lines were twice as likely as those living

in homes without LSLs to have blood lead of 5 to 9 μg/dL and three times as likely to have levels at or above

10 μg/dL. The same study did not ﬁnd a statistically signiﬁcant dierence between blood lead levels of children

from homes with partial versus full LSLs,

indicating that partial replacements—in which only one portion of a

line is updated—are inadequate to protect children from exposure.

In 2011, an expert panel advising the EPA reviewed pilot studies and anecdotal reports from utilities and

concluded that partial LSL replacement does not reliably reduce water lead levels, at least in the short term,

and may result in more harm than beneﬁt.

A recent ﬁeld study monitoring partial replacement over

18 months found a short-term increase immediately following replacement and then slightly lower water

lead thereafter.

A Canadian study also showed a short-term (less than one month) increase but found no

improvement compared with no replacement after six months. These analyses conﬁrm the limited beneﬁts

of partial replacement for reducing water lead levels and conclude that full replacement is preferable.

The number of LSLs in use across the country is unknown, but estimates suggest that between 5.5 and 10 million

LSLs provide water to an estimated 15 to 22 million people. Similarly, no national data characterize the levels of

lead in U.S. drinking water, so as communities work to more clearly identify the number of LSLs in operation, the

estimates could prove low.

Policy in Action: Strategies to Promote Lead Service Line Replacement

Milwaukee requires full replacement of lead service lines with copper pipe if a leak or failure is

discovered or if the utility-owned portion is replaced on a planned or emergency basis. The city

is using $2.6 million in state grants to replace lines at 300 day care centers and 300 residences

as well as $3.6 million of its own funds to cover replacement of the city-owned portion of

600 other residential lines. The city’s total $3.9 million budget for the program also includes

funds to help pay for replacement of privately owned LSLs at the same time that the city

updates the public portions and to provide water ﬁlters and bottled water to property owners

during the work. Under the program, property owners are responsible for no more than one-

third of the cost of replacement up to $1,600 if the work is done by a city contractor, and they

can pay their share over 10 years. Previously, a property owner was responsible for the full cost,

which could be as much as $7,000.

Milwaukee Water Works will use customer water payments to cover the balance of the

cost to replace the city-owned portions, and property taxes will cover the dierence for the

private portion. The program is expected to take several decades to complete, reaching

about 600 properties a year until all 68,300 known residential LSL are replaced.

In 1986, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, adopted a policy requiring builders to replace the entire

lead service line when a structure is sold, demolished, or replaced.

†

The property owner is

responsible for the cost of the private side, and the city pays for its part at the same time, if

it has not already been replaced.

In November 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) authorized an

amendment to allow Michigan’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to pay for

the replacement of water pipes and ﬁxtures from the homes of low-income families with

children, marking the ﬁrst such approval.

Continued on next page

The amendment was developed under a provision that allows a state to access special federal

CHIP matching funds for certain noncoverage-related expenditures that have a value of no

more than 10 percent of the state’s total amount paid for program beneﬁts. Eligible activities

include initiatives targeted at improving the health of children, outreach, translation or

interpretation services, payments for other child health assistance such as specialty care not

included in the beneﬁt package, and other reasonable administrative costs.

‡

Properties in Flint with contaminated water receive ﬁrst priority, and any property in the state

with a resident under 19 who qualiﬁes for Medicaid or CHIP is eligible. Under the initiative,

Michigan will spend $333,000 on the eort in ﬁscal year 2017, which will be matched by

$23.5 million in federal funds. Over ﬁve years, the state plans to spend $119 million. Lead

paint hazard control for eligible statewide residences is also an allowable expense under

the initiative.

* Don Behm, “Milwaukee Aldermen Approve Lead Pipe Replacement Plan,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 13, 2016,

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2016/12/13/milwaukee-aldermen-approve-lead-pipe-

replacement-plan/95342526.

† Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, “State and Local Examples,” Requiring LSL Replacement When

Opportunities Arise, accessed May 25, 2017, http://www.lslr-collaborative.org/requiring-lsl-replacement.html.

‡ Cindy Mann, Kinda Seraﬁ, and Arielle Traub, “Leveraging CHIP to Protect Low-Income Children From Lead”

(January 2017), https://www.manatt.com/getattachment/235604fe-5700-4ec1-a25e-7d51c4e347af/

attachment.aspx; U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Michigan Health Services Initiative,” 2016 Fact

Sheets, Nov. 14, 2016, https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/mediareleasedatabase/fact-sheets/2016-fact-sheets-

items/2016-11-14-3.html.

§ David Eggert for Associated Press, “Michigan Gets Federal OK to Spend $119 Million on Lead Abatement,” Crain’s

Detroit Business, Nov. 14, 2016, http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20161114/NEWS01/161119887/michigan-

gets-federal-ok-to-spend-119-million-on-lead-abatement; Kaiser Family Foundation, “Michigan’s Medicaid Section

1115 Waiver to Address Eects of Lead Exposure in Flint,” accessed Jan. 26, 2017, http://k.org/medicaid/fact-

sheet/michigans-medicaid-section-1115-waiver-to-address-eects-of-lead-exposure-in-ﬂint.

Stakeholder input

Participants in the focus groups recognized that lead in water from ﬁxtures, solder, and pipes is a potential

source of childhood exposure. Many community residents knew about steps they could take to reduce the

risk, such as ﬂushing taps and using bottled or ﬁltered water, but some expressed concerns that bottled

water could also be contaminated with lead or other chemicals. A few participants across multiple groups did

indicate some misperceptions about lead in drinking water, primarily that it would be visible as a brown tint

or particulate matter. A few believed that boiling water could protect against lead when, in fact, it can

actually increase the concentration.

Focus group participants in Flint emphasized the burden the city’s crisis has placed on small-business owners

and residents. For example, a woman who prepared and sold tamales from her home was forced to terminate her

business because of water contamination. Others described stress and strain on social relationships resulting

from worry and embarrassment over the quality of water in homes and said fear of unsafe water even led a

church to discontinue baptisms. One nursing mother explained that she had asked to have her blood tested for

lead to ensure that she could safely breastfeed her child. The discussions also highlighted the importance of

tailoring LSL replacement policies to local contexts; for example, a policy to replace pipes in Lansing, Michigan,

may not be successfully replicated in Flint because as participants explained, Flint’s water pipes are intricately

bent rather than straight as in Lansing. Community members also noted that Flint’s water system is underused

due to signiﬁcant population declines after the closure of General Motors’ manufacturing plants.

Participants identiﬁed potential unintended eects of LSL removal, including trac issues and closed streets.

Others expressed concern about the cost of replacing private lines. Some also worried that the expense

associated with replacing public lines would present a barrier to decision-makers in their communities. One

Flint focus group participant said he “simply didn’t trust the water and couldn’t bear to drink it” despite having

received LSL replacement and ﬁlters.

Participants in the national listening sessions said policies aimed at eliminating lead in water should address

the risks of partial LSL replacement, consider the need for better sample collection and testing and reporting

methods, include remediation as part of federal infrastructure investments, and ensure that grant assistance

is available if abatement becomes a requirement of real estate transactions. They also pointed out that most

federal, state, and local laws regarding lead hazards in housing do not address drinking water. For example,

replacement of leaded pipes or plumbing is not an eligible expense under HUD’s lead paint hazard control

grant program because the relevant statute speciﬁed only paint, dust, and soil hazards.

These participants and expert advisers also expressed concern that consumers incorrectly interpret the EPA’s

action level of 15 ppb as addressing their individual tap, rather than the water system as a whole. Stakeholders

recommended that the EPA issue a separate tap action level to help customers know when they should take steps

to reduce the amount of lead in their water. The experts also pointed to a recent assessment by Health Canada

that proposed a maximum allowable concentration of 5 ppb, and they suggested the same level could serve as an

interim standard toward the goal of getting to 1 ppb over time.

Experts further expressed concern about the water sampling protocol used by utilities, speciﬁcally that too few

samples are drawn within each home and that the samples are not consistently taken after the water has sat in

the pipe (stagnated), so they may underestimate the risk to consumers. Many factors, including the materials

used to collect samples, water ﬂow rates, and components at the tap also inﬂuence results, so typical testing may

not always be reliable. However, identifying a revised sampling protocol was beyond the scope of this study.

Experts recommended that the EPA develop a new protocol and partner with state agencies to assure that

utilities inform homeowners about appropriate test procedures. They also thought that the EPA should require

more widespread monitoring of lead in customers’ tap water rather than the current practice of sampling only

a percentage of taps.

Proposed solution

Full lead service line replacement (from street to structure) in the U.S. could take 20 to 30 years to complete,

and a large number of homes still have lead plumbing ﬁxtures. The research suggests a multipronged approach is

the best option for reducing children’s exposure to lead in drinking water. First, the EPA should improve corrosion

control eorts by strengthening its Lead and Copper Rule to increase compliance monitoring, the use of corrosion

control, and the adoption of optimized corrosion control, a practice that can involve adjusting the pH of water and

adding chemicals to inhibit corrosion. Second, rather than treating LSL replacement as a last resort, municipalities

should proactively replace lead service lines. Finally, in light of the evidence of public health risks associated with

partial replacement, municipalities should replace the entire line during routine repairs that disturb LSLs.

Although corrosion control will remain an important component of lead management, particularly for addressing

risks associated with leaded plumbing ﬁxtures and solder, because of concerns about the consistent eectiveness

of corrosion control practices, and to permanently remediate a key source of exposure, the research team

modeled the costs and beneﬁts of removing LSLs from homes built before 1986 where children in the 2018 birth

cohort would reside.

Although the beneﬁt of the intervention is broad—aecting hundreds of thousands of children, as discussed

earlier—children residing in low-income communities and localities with aging infrastructure would reap the

greatest beneﬁts from the replacement of lead service lines.

Literature summary

Evidentiary support: Scientiﬁcally supported. Strategies have been tested in multiple robust studies with

consistently favorable results.

Population aected: Regional or national.

Modeling assumptions

• The number of LSLs used in this analysis relied in part on self-reported survey data collected from water

utilities and on input from industry representatives.

No data source was found to document how many

children are served by LSLs or their blood lead levels, so the team used a national survey of water systems

to ﬁrst estimate that 6.84 percent of the U.S. population is served by a lead service line and then applied

that percentage to the roughly 4 million children estimated by the Current Population Survey to be in the

2018 cohort.

This calculation determined that the number of children born in 2018 who would be served

by a lead service line is 272,285.

• In the absence of national data to characterize the level of lead in drinking water in homes served by LSLs,

the research team used two water lead levels for reference. A mean concentration of 11.4 ppb was derived

from unpublished proﬁling samples from ﬁve Midwest utilities that were compliant with the Lead and Copper

Rule but were not considered to have optimized corrosion control, and a lower level of 5 ppb was taken from

proﬁling samples of an eastern U.S. utility viewed as using optimized corrosion control and from unpublished

data from the city of Ottawa.

These levels were selected to be indicative of systems in compliance with the

Lead and Copper Rule and to reﬂect the likely mean concentration of lead in water after stagnation. The team,

in consultation with members of the advisory committee, assumed that LSL replacement could reduce drinking

water lead levels to 2 ppb, rather than zero, because of remaining lead plumbing ﬁxtures and solder in homes.

• To estimate baseline levels for children living in homes built before 1986 (the year the EPA banned lead in

drinking water pipes), the team used NHANES blood lead level data for children residing in homes built before

1990—the closest available year.

• Although two well-designed studies from the literature review provided an eect size for the relationship

between lead in water and children’s blood lead levels, both had limitations that made them inappropriate

for use in this study. Therefore the research team used the EPA’s Integrated Exposure Uptake and Biokinetic

(IEUBK) model estimates of 0.042 μg/dL change in blood lead per 1 ppb dierence water lead.

Applying this

estimate to the expected water lead changes, the team estimated that full residential LSL replacement would

prevent a 0.40 μg/dL and a 0.13 μg/dL increase in blood lead, for the 11.4 ppb and 5 ppb baseline water lead

levels, respectively, and then applied these estimates to children’s starting blood lead levels from NHANES.

(See the appendix for more details.)

• In the absence of national pricing data for full LSL replacement, the research team estimated a per-unit cost

of $6,000. A 2008 national survey of utilities found that typical replacement costs ranged widely from

$250 for the utility portion and $600 for the customer portion to $3,000 and $4,000, respectively.

recent informal survey of all systems known to be pursuing full LSL replacement suggested average costs of

roughly $7,500.

Given the cost variations across localities, the research team combined these estimates

to calculate the per-unit cost.

• The beneﬁts include one child per home from the 2018 birth cohort as well as 80,000 additional children

born into the remediated homes in the subsequent 10 years. They do not account for children who visit but

do not reside in those homes.

Findings

The analysis, including the calculations of blood lead, cost, and children aected as well as the modeling, found

that full LSL replacement across all homes built before 1986 with resident children would:

• Protect 352,000 children, including 272,000 born in 2018 and 80,000 born into the same homes over the

next 10 years.

• Cost an estimated $2.0 billion for the 2018 cohort.

For homes with baseline water lead levels around 11.4 ppb, the intervention would:

• Prevent an increase of 0.40 μg/dL lead in the blood of children in the 2018 birth cohort.

• Produce total future beneﬁts of $2.7 billion, including $480 million for the federal government and

$250 million for states and municipalities.

• Generate roughly $1.33 per $1.00 invested.

If, alternatively, baseline water lead levels were 5 ppb, replacing LSLs would:

• Prevent an increase of 0.13 μg/dl lead in the blood of children in the 2018 birth cohort.

• Yield future beneﬁts of $860 million, including $150 million for the federal government and $80 million for

states and municipalities.

• Result in $0.42 in beneﬁts for each $1 invested. (See Table 3.)

Table 3

Every Dollar Invested in Full Lead Service Line Replacement Would

Generate $.42 to $1.33 in Beneﬁts

Cost-beneﬁt analysis, for two initial water lead levels

Baseline estimates

Number and percentage of children born

in 2018 into homes built before 1986 (1 child per unit)

2,352,000 (59%)

Percentage of those children in homes with potential lead

service lines (LSLs)

6.84%

Average blood lead level for children without intervention 1.19 μg /dL

Starting level of lead in water (ppb) 11.4 5

Predicted impacts

Homes receiving lead service line replacement 272,000

Children aected (including future cohorts) 352,000

Expected decrease in water lead (ppb) 9.4 3

Prevented blood lead level increase per child (μg/dL) 0.40 0.13

Gross future

beneﬁts

Initial

cohort

Earnings $2.0 billion $640 million

Health savings $40 million $10 million

Education savings $50 million $20 million

Quality-adjusted life years beneﬁts $80 million $30 million

Future cohorts (through year 10) $550 million $170 million

Total gross future beneﬁts $2.7 billion $860 million

Share to federal government $480 million $150 million

Share to state and local governments $250 million $80 million

Share to households, the private sector, and other

nongovernmental entities

$2.0 billion $630 million

Continued on next page

Costs

Testing cost per potential lead service line $175

Total testing cost $410 million

Full lead service line replacement cost per home $6,000

Full lead service line replacement cost for all homes $1.6 billion

Total costs $2.0 billion

Net

Net future beneﬁts $680 million -$1.2 billion

Cost-beneﬁt ratio 1.33 0.42

Notes: Analysis is based on the 2018 birth cohort, estimated at approximately 4 million children. Analysis includes beneﬁts for future

cohorts. Total future beneﬁts include small changes in incarceration costs not itemized in the table. Values may not add up to totals because

of rounding.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation

Policy in Action: Replacing Lead Service Lines

From 2004 through 2016, Lansing, Michigan, replaced 12,150 LSLs with copper lines at a cost of

$44.5 million through a program of the Lansing Board of Water and Light (BWL), a municipally

owned utility.

In 2004, then-Michigan State Senator Virg Bernero encouraged local ocials

to advocate with BWL Commissioners to accelerate the removal of Lansing’s LSLs. The BWL

funded the program as an infrastructure investment and utility customers shared the cost

through an increase in water rates.

†

BWL prioritized lines serving schools and licensed day care

centers, areas where testing showed that children had high blood lead levels, households with

pregnant women or children under 6, and other places with large concentrations of LSLs.

‡

BWL has developed a faster, more ecient method for replacing pipes: What had been a

nearly eight-hour, $9,000 job requiring a trench to be dug from the main to the foundation

of the house was streamlined to four hours and $3,600. Now, rather than trenching, BWL digs

a hole in the street and another at the shut-o valve and pulls a new pipe in behind the old

one.

Where possible, the program has followed planned street, sewer, and other infrastructure

projects to minimize street closures and reduce street reconstruction costs.

BWL water quality reports indicate a decrease in lead levels in the water over 10 years, with

90 percent of homes falling from 11.3 ppb in 2005 to no more than 7.8 in 2015.

Although BWL

has completed its LSL replacement program, it plans to continue corrosion control processes.

* Lansing Board of Water and Light, “Lead Service Advisory Information,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, https://lbwl.com/

Community-Impact/Water-Quality/Lead-Service-Information; Lansing Board of Water and Light, “BWL 2015

Annual Water Quality Report,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017, http://lbwl.com/WaterQualityReport; Lorna Benson, “In

Battle to Keep Lead From Water, St. Paul Digs Deep,” MPR News, May 25, 2016, https://www.mprnews.org/

story/2016/05/25/water-stpaul-lead-pipes.

† Trent Gillies, “Flint Crisis Can Be Fixed With $55M in New Pipes: Lansing Mayor,” CNBC, April 24, 2016,

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/22/ﬂints-crisis-can-be-ﬁxed-with-55m-in-new-pipes-lansing-mayor.html.

‡ Lansing Board of Water and Light, “Lead Service Advisory Information.”

§ Faith Miller, “Lansing BWL Helping Flint Figure Out How to Replace Lead Pipes,” WILX 10, Feb. 9, 2016, http://www.

wilx.com/home/headlines/Lansing-BWL--368260751.html.

|| Lansing Board of Water and Light, “Lead Service Advisory Information.”

# Lansing Board of Water and Light, “BWL 2015 Annual Water Quality Report”; Lorna Benson, “In Battle to Keep Lead

From Water, St. Paul Digs Deep.”

Potential challenges

Although speciﬁcs vary across communities, service lines are typically jointly owned: The utility generally

owns the portion running from the water main at the street to the property line, while the section from the

property line into the home, as well as the household plumbing, belongs to the property owner. Also, some

cities assess substantial permitting fees; for example, Chicago reportedly charges $3,500 for city permits

to perform the work.

The concerns discussed above about partial LSL replacement risks have prompted some municipalities, such

as Lansing, Madison, and Milwaukee, to prohibit the practice and have driven others to authorize public water

utilities to replace the privately owned lines.

Promptly replacing LSLs would improve children’s health and

produce economic beneﬁts, but it also would be costly and has the potential for unintended consequences.

In particular, avoiding excessive costs to taxpayers, utilities, and ratepayers; proactively planning for the safe

disposal of removed leaded lines; and minimizing trac issues, street closures, and disruption to residents would

all require signiﬁcant planning, budgeting, and organizational capacity. In addition, investing in LSL removal could

constrain resources and limit expenditures for other drinking water-related priorities.

The EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund (DWSRF) oers one potential means of osetting these

expenses. The fund was created in 1996 as an amendment of the Safe Drinking Water Act and is appropriated

annually by Congress.

The program provides infrastructure grants to the states, the District of Columbia, and

Puerto Rico for eligible projects, such as facility upgrades to improve drinking water quality and installation of

water storage tanks. Grant awards are based on the most recent Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and

Assessment, and states must provide 20 percent in matching funds. As water systems repay loans, the principal

and interest are directed back into the fund. In total, the DWSRF has provided over $32 billion to water systems

through nearly 13,000 grants.

Dale G. Young/The Detroit News

Lansing Board of Water and Light employees replace the last lead service line with copper pipes in Lansing, Michigan, on Dec. 14, 2016.

Lead paint hazards

I didn’t think about it. … We had repainted every surface of the house.

It looked clean. It looked neat. It looked ready. But there was still lead.”

—Baltimore resident

Lead-based paint and the contaminated dust it generates in homes and soil represent one of the most dangerous

and widespread sources of exposure aicting children.

The relationship between lead paint and blood lead has

been extensively studied.

More than half of homes built before 1978 have some lead-based paint, and the share

increases to 76 percent and 86 percent for homes built before 1960 and 1940, respectively.

The 2006 American

Healthy Homes Survey found that more than a third of the nation’s housing stock (an estimated 37 million

residences) contain lead paint, and more than 1 in 5 homes (roughly 23 million) have deteriorating lead paint or

dust or soil lead levels that exceed federal standards. Approximately 3.6 million homes with lead paint hazards

house young children, including those from roughly 1.1 million low-income households.

Residential remediation

Reducing lead paint hazards in homes involves testing paint, dust, and soil to determine whether levels are above

federal standards. Once a lead paint problem is identiﬁed, property owners typically choose from one of two

methods for dealing with it: Long-term “abatement” can last at least 20 years and involves either permanently

covering or removing lead paint,

while shorter-term “interim controls” include repairing ﬂaking and peeling

paint and covering contaminated soil with mulch or grass. Windows have the highest levels of lead paint and

dust compared with other building components, and replacing windows with lead paint has been shown to

deliver large, sustained reductions in dust lead levels, including on ﬂoors that children are likely to contact more

frequently.

One barrier to replacing old windows coated with lead paint is provisions of the National Historic

Preservation Act, which along with state and local rules restricts replacement of features such as windows in

historic homes.

The preponderance of research evidence, including from multiple randomized-control trials and systematic

reviews, demonstrates the eectiveness of lead paint hazard control,

but a small body of research has

contradicted those ﬁndings. A few studies from the late 1980s and early 1990s found increased blood lead levels

after abatement, but those discordant ﬁndings were the result of unsafe practices such as using high heat to

remove paint, which created dangerous fumes and dust,

and which the federal government banned more than

20 years ago. In addition, some systematic reviews have found limited evidence to support lead paint abatement.

However, those studies focused on the ecacy of treatment measures in reducing elevated blood lead levels

in children,

which is an imperfect metric because blood lead can remain elevated for months or years after

exposure as lead is exchanged between blood and bone.

In children, bone lead represents about 70 percent of

total body lead,

so blood levels of lead-exposed children would not be expected to be statistically dierent one

year after their homes were treated. Therefore, not only do those ﬁndings not suggest that the intervention is

ineective, they in fact underscore the importance of actions, such as abatement, that can prevent exposure.

The primary federal law concerning lead paint hazards in housing is the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard

Reduction Act, also called Title X, to reﬂect the section of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992

in which it was enacted.

Key features of the act include:

• Authorizing the HUD lead hazard control grant program, which is the federal government’s primary means of

assisting homeowners with control eorts. The program makes up less than 0.3 percent of the department’s

budget.

• Creating a certiﬁcation system for individuals and businesses performing lead control activities.

• Requiring either interim controls or lead abatement for federally owned and assisted housing, such as public

and military housing.

• Establishing the federal lead disclosure rule, which requires property owners to reveal any known lead paint

hazards to prospective buyers or tenants before a property is sold or rented.

• Deﬁning existing lead-based paint in housing as containing 5,000 ppm of lead or 1 mg/cm

• Requiring EPA to publish standards for lead in dust and bare soil at residential properties.

Title X led to a signiﬁcant reduction in the number of homes with lead paint hazards. Speciﬁcally, more than

190,000 homes have been made lead-safe with HUD lead hazard control grants since the program’s inception in

1993. The program has a budget of about $90 million that supports lead-hazard reduction in roughly 7,000 units

each year, but the funding amount falls far short of the $230 million recommended by a federal lead poisoning

prevention task force in 2000.

About 12,000 low-income homes undergo lead paint hazard control annually

under HUD regulations authorized by Title X that apply to federally assisted housing. Additionally, HUD, the

EPA, and the Department of Justice enforce the federal lead disclosure rule which to date has yielded $31 million

in settlement funds from property owners, and under landlords’ agreements with HUD, the remediation of lead

paint hazards in more than 188,000 homes of low-income families.

Rental housing built before 1960 that is in poor condition and is occupied by low-income families carries the

greatest lead risks. States and local agencies can use available data to identify the neighborhoods and even

blocks or streets that have these characteristics and target resources to those areas.

One study found that

children from low-income families residing in federally assisted rental properties had lower blood lead levels than

comparable children living in housing without federal subsidies.

These results suggest that the former group’s

rental units may be in better condition because of federal requirements and that unsubsidized low-income

housing should be the primary focus for action in many states and localities. However, in communities that have

strong policies in place to prevent children from being exposed to lead in rental housing, low-income owner-

occupied homes, such as those handed down through generations, pose the more serious threat. Such variation

in risk proﬁles within and across communities underscores the need for neighborhood-level data to support

decision-making.

Forty-four states have adopted laws addressing lead paint hazards, and 38 require certiﬁcation for contractors

that conduct lead inspections and abatement. EPA handles such licensing for the remaining states.

Several

municipalities also have taken action to address lead hazards in housing through code enforcement or public

health laws. Such local government action has the advantage of being targeted to communities’ immediate

situations. For example, the city of Rochester, New York, used neighborhood-level blood lead data to prioritize

enforcement of its local law. Municipal laws also are often more easily amendable than federal or state laws.

Frequently, a small number of rental units is responsible for poisoning many children in a given community. For

example, in Chicago, 67 high-risk buildings contributed to 994 cases of high lead levels, and in Jeerson County,

Kentucky (home to Louisville), 79 houses were home to 35 percent of the children with blood lead levels at or

above 20 μg/dl.

This is largely because most state and local laws permit property owners to re-rent units where

a child has been exposed to lead even if the hazards persist. Laws requiring inspection and treatment of units

with identiﬁed lead hazards can prevent multiple cases of lead poisoning at the same address. A study found that

Massachusetts and Ohio, which mandate inspection and treatment of units with hazards, were 79 percent less

likely than Mississippi, which lacks such a requirement, to have residential addresses that repeatedly contributed

to high lead levels in children.

Policy in Action: Local Lead Paint Laws

In Rochester, New York, 87 percent of homes were built before 1950, and 60 percent of

housing is tenant-occupied.

In December 2005, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring

regular inspections of most pre-1978 rental housing for lead paint hazards as part of the city’s

certiﬁcate of occupancy process for rental properties.

†

Housing inspections may be triggered by a new certiﬁcate of occupancy, renewal of an existing

certiﬁcate, a neighborhood survey, a referral by an outside agency, or a complaint. Single-family

and duplex rental units are inspected every six years with some exceptions, and buildings with

three or more units as well as mixed-use properties are inspected every three years.

To receive a certiﬁcate, property owners must correct identiﬁed lead hazard violations. The city

maintains an online database of all lead-safe units and properties granted a certiﬁcate.

‡

Experts describe Rochester’s law as one of the smartest in the nation.

In the decade since the

ordinance’s passage, the city has inspected more than 141,000 homes and the number and

proportion of children with high blood lead levels has decreased countywide. In 2004, 900

children tested for lead in Monroe County had levels above the CDC’s action level at the time of

10 μg/dL compared with 206 children in 2015.

Between 1997 and 2011, the number of children

with blood lead over 10 μg/dL decreased roughly twice as fast in Monroe County as it did in

New York state as a whole and nationwide.

Despite this signiﬁcant progress in 2015, 988 of

14,283 children tested—enough to ﬁll more than 40 kindergarten classrooms—had blood lead

levels at or above CDC’s current reference value of 5 μg/dL, indicating that additional eorts are

needed in Rochester.

The District of Columbia’s Lead Hazard Prevention and Elimination Act of 2008, amended in

2011, prohibits the presence of lead-based paint hazards in dwelling units, common areas of

multifamily properties, and day care and prekindergarten facilities constructed before 1978.

††

Before a purchaser or tenant is obligated under contract to buy or lease a unit, the property

owner must prove no lead-based paint hazards were present within the previous 12 months.

‡‡

Continued on next page

A related provision extends this requirement to units occupied or visited by a child or pregnant

woman. In addition, if owners discover lead-based paint in their properties, they must disclose

it to their tenants within 10 days.

* National Institutes of Health, “Rochester’s Lead Law: Evaluation of a Local Environmental Health Policy Innovation,”

accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589936091.

† City of Rochester, “Article III: Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://ecode360.

com/8677707; City of Rochester, “Lead Paint—Get Prepared,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.cityofrochester.

gov/article.aspx?id=8589936091.

‡ Dan Telvock, “Rochester Leads on Lead While Bualo Dallies,” Investigative Post, accessed June 9, 2017, http://www.

investigativepost.org/2014/11/12/bualo-lacks-leadership-lead-poisoning-problem.

§ Rachel Dissell and Brie Zeltner, “How Rochester Responded to Its Lead Poisoning Problem: Toxic Neglect,” Cleveland

Plain Dealer, Oct. 23, 2015, http://www.cleveland.com/healthﬁt/index.ssf/2015/10/how_rochester_stopped_

using_ch.html.

|| Meaghan M. McDermott, “Lead Levels on the Rise in Monroe County,” Democrat & Chronicle, June 28, 2016,

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2016/06/28/children-lead-levels-monroe-county/86471002.

# Byron Kennedy et al., “Declines in Elevated Blood Lead Levels Among Children, 1997-2011,” American Journal of

Preventive Medicine 46, no. 3 (2014): 259–64, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2013.11.007.

** McDermott, “Lead Levels on the Rise.”

†† D.C. Ocial Code § 8-231.01 et seq.

‡‡ D.C. Municipal Regulations and D.C. Register, “Regulation of Lead-Based Paint Activities.”

Stakeholder input

Regardless of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, focus group participants worried about children coming

into contact with lead paint at home. Nearly all parents said they wished they had more information about

lead hazards in their homes before their children were exposed. Many also said that lead disclosure forms did

not suciently communicate the dangers, and that they would prefer to have access to property inspection

documents. Two homeowners admitted disregarding the lead disclosure information when they purchased their

homes to avoid seeming fussy or losing the sale. Renters suggested that fear of eviction might prevent them from

raising concerns about lead hazards with their landlords. Similarly, concerns about property devaluation keep

many property owners from testing for lead.

Community residents largely agreed that ﬁning noncompliant landlords is inadequate because it does not

necessarily compel property owners to address the lead hazards. Families that moved to avoid continued

exposure worried that future renters could be in danger because of the landlord’s failure to comply or inability

to aord abatement or remodeling. Landlords, in turn, worried about lawsuits, even when the rental unit was

not conﬁrmed as the primary source of exposure.

Not surprisingly, residents and landlords had dierent views on requiring inspections to identify lead hazards.

Some renters had experienced conﬂicts with landlords over lead hazards, while property owners worried that the

costs of addressing lead could cause ﬁnancial strain and diculty selling homes that still required abatement.

Funding for abatement could mitigate some of these unintended harms. The cost of remediation and restrictions

on the type of modiﬁcations allowed to historic properties, such as window replacements, could make it dicult

for landlords meet lead requirements.

To reduce these burdens, some participants proposed prioritizing inspections for homes with young children

or units rented using housing vouchers, but targeting units with young children could mean lead paint hazards

in the homes of grandparents or other caregivers go undetected and could discourage landlords from renting

to families. Another suggestion was osetting the cost of window replacement and lead abatement through

tax credits and ﬁnancing to minimize burdens and encourage landlords and homeowners to have properties

inspected. Some participants, however, identiﬁed citizenship requirements to receive ﬁnancing and credits as a

barrier for some property owners to access such funding.

In interviews, stakeholders recommended that jobs generated to address lead paint hazards in housing, such as

inspectors and lead paint hazard control workers, be oered ﬁrst to community members in lead-aected areas.

Policy in Action: State Lead Paint Hazard Control Laws

Maryland’s Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Act, enacted in 1994 and amended in 2012,

requires owners of rental residences built before 1978 to annually register their properties with

the Maryland Department of the Environment indicating that they are free of chipping, peeling

paint, and lead-contaminated dust. To qualify for registration, owners must hire a certiﬁed

contractor to address any defective paint and have an accredited inspector verify compliance

before any change in occupancy. The department ﬁles between 500 and 800 violation notices

annually, and a team from the state’s attorney general’s oce is responsible for enforcing

actions against noncompliant owners. Since the law’s enactment, the rate of high blood lead

levels in Maryland children has declined by 98 percent: In 1993, 14,546 (23.9 percent) of the

60,912 children under 6 tested had blood lead levels of 10 μg/dl or higher, and by 2015, that

ﬁgure had declined to 377 children of 110,217 (0.3 percent).

Since 1993, New York state regulations have included a Notice and Demand component that

requires property owners to address lead hazards to prevent exposure. After inspecting a unit

for lead paint hazards, including deteriorated paint and contaminated dust and bare soil, the

local health department can issue a written notice, which outlines the hazards present and

requires owners to submit a corrective work plan within a ﬁxed number of days.

†

Continued on next page

Proposed solution

According to HUD, roughly 23 million residences have lead hazards such as peeling paint, contaminated

dust, or toxic soil, and 3.6 million of these are home to young children.

Substantial evidence including from

randomized control trials indicates that remediating lead paint hazards reduces blood lead levels, and many

states and localities have undertaken successful lead hazard control eorts.

Given this diverse body of

evidence, the research team chose to analyze the impacts of testing and treating paint, dust, and soil, and

replacing old windows.

Literature summary

Evidentiary support: Scientiﬁcally supported. Strategies have been tested in multiple robust studies with

consistently favorable results.

Population aected: Regional or national.

Modeling assumptions

• Using published literature on the eects of lead paint hazard control on dust lead levels and studies of the

relationship between lead in dust and in blood, the team undertook a two-step process to estimate that

removing lead paint hazards from homes before those children are born would prevent a 40 percent increase in

their blood lead.

To establish the reduction in dust lead levels resulting from lead paint hazard control, the team used data from

a long-term follow-up of interventions in 189 nonrandomly selected homes from multiple regions of the country

that found an 89 percent decline in dust lead 12 years after treatment.

The study did not include a control

group for ethical reasons, but it is, nevertheless, the largest and longest national evaluation of lead hazard

control eorts, and its ﬁndings align with many smaller studies of lead paint hazard control eects.

Second,

the team used a national cross-sectional survey conducted from 1999 through 2004 to predict the eect of

decreased dust lead on child blood lead levels.

The data indicated that the above-referenced 89 percent

reduction in dust lead would prevent a 39.5 percent increase in children’s blood lead levels.

* Maryland Department of the Environment, “Lead Poisoning Cases Drop in Baltimore and in Maryland, Department

of the Environment Moves to Reduce Potential Exposures in More Homes,” accessed Jan.12, 2017, http://news.

maryland.gov/mde/2015/09/03/lead-poisoning-cases-drop-in-baltimore-and-in-maryland-department-of-the-

environment-moves-to-reduce-potential-exposures-in-more-homes; Maryland Department of the Environment,

“Childhood Blood Lead Surveillance, Statewide 1993-2014,” accessed June 14, 2017, http://www.mde.state.

md.us/programs/PressRoom/Documents/Childhood_Lead_Surveillance_Statewide_1993-2014.pdf; Maryland

Department of the Environment Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, “Childhood Blood Lead Surveillance in

Maryland: Annual Report 2015,” accessed May 25, 2017, http://www.mde.state.md.us/programs/land/documents/

leadreports/leadreportsannualchildhoodleadregistry/leadreportclr2015.pdf.

† New York State Department of Health, “NYS Regulations for Lead Poisoning Prevention and Control—NYCRR Title

X, Part 67,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, https://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/nycrr/title_10/part_67/#sec67-2-6.

• The study team used the American Healthy Homes Survey to estimate that about 75 percent of pre-1960

homes and 50 percent of pre-1978 homes have lead-based paint and would require remediation.

• The per unit cost of remediation is estimated based on data from HUD’s Lead Hazard Control program which

includes costs for replacing some windows, treating deteriorated paint, remediating toxic soil, and repairing

other high-risk areas, such as doors. In addition, the cost estimates include $1,000 for testing of paint, dust,

and soil to identify hazards before work is initiated and to ensure the safety of the home before residents

return. The costs do not include expenses necessary to administer lead-hazard control programs, for which

HUD spends about $2.7 million. HUD also caps administrative costs for grantee states and municipalities at

10 percent, typically less than $300,000 for a three-year program.

• The beneﬁts include one child per home from the 2018 birth cohort as well as 67,000 additional children likely

to be born into the remediated homes in the subsequent 10 years.

They do not account for children who visit

but do not reside in those homes.

100

The team modeled the implementation of lead paint hazard control under four scenarios. Speciﬁcally, the models

examined impacts for those living in homes built before 1978, the year that the CPSC restricted the use of lead-

based paint for residential use, and those built before 1960, because data suggest that the use of lead paint

tapered o after that date. Additionally, the team examined the eects of lead paint hazard control for the entire

population of children and for the population from families with incomes at or below 120 percent of the federal

poverty threshold. (See Table 4.)

Findings

The analysis determined that comprehensive lead paint hazard remediation for the children born in 2018,

would, on average:

• Protect 311,000 low-income children who live in homes built before 1960.

101

This includes 244,000 children

born in the initial 2018 cohort, with an additional 67,000 births estimated born into the same homes in the

following 10 years.

• Cost approximately $2.5 billion.

For homes with ﬂoor dust lead levels around 20 μg/sq. ft., the intervention would:

• Yield $3.5 billion in total discounted future beneﬁts, including:

• $630 million for the federal government.

• $320 million for state and local governments.

• Generate $1.39 per $1 invested.

If, alternatively, baseline ﬂoor dust lead levels are 10 μg/sq. ft., the intervention would:

• Yield $2.8 billion in total discounted future beneﬁts, including:

• $490 million for the federal government.

• $250 million for state and local governments.

• Produce $1.09 for every $1 invested. (See Table 4.)

The research found that targeting this intervention only to more at-risk populations—pre-1960 homes, and

low-income residents—generates a greater return and higher net beneﬁts.

Pre-1960 homes Pre-1978 homes

All Low-income All Low-income

Baseline

estimates

Number and percentage of

children expected to live in older

housing (1 child per unit)

1,068,000

(26.8%)

321,000 (8.1%)

1,934,000

(48.6%)

600,000 (15.1%)

Percentage of those children

whose homes need lead hazard

control (LHC)

75.8% 52.4%

Average blood lead level

for children if no intervention

(μg/dL)

1.34 1.63 1.25 1.53

Starting level of lead in ﬂoor

dust (μg/sq. ft.)

10 20 10 20 10 20 10 20

Predicted

impacts

Homes remediated 809,000 244,000 1,014,000 315,000

Children aected (including

future cohorts)

1,033,000 311,000 1,295,000 402,000

Expected decrease in levels of

lead in house dust

76% 89% 76% 89% 76% 89% 76% 89%

Prevented increase in blood lead

levels per child

32% 40% 32% 40% 32% 40% 32% 40%

Gross future

beneﬁts

Initial

cohort

Earnings

$6.1

billion

$7.7

billion

$2.0

billion

$2.6

billion

$7.2

billion

$9.0

billion

$2.5

billion

$3.2

billion

Health savings

$140

million

$170

million

$50

million

$60

million

$160

million

$200

million

$60

million

$80

million

Education savings

$140

million

$170

million

$50

million

$60

million

$170

million

$210

million

$60

million

$70

million

Quality-adjusted life

years beneﬁts

$250

million

$310

million

$90

million

$110

million

$290

million

$360

million

$110

million

$140

million

Future cohorts (through year 10)

$1.6

billion

$2.0

billion

$530

million

$670

million

$1.8

billion

$2.3

billion

$650

million

$830

million

Total gross future

beneﬁts

$8.2

billion

$10.3

billion

$2.8

billion

$3.5

billion

$9.6

billion

$12.1

billion

$3.4

billion

$4.3

billion

Share to the federal

government

$1.5

billion

$1.8

billion

$490

million

$630

million

$1.7

billion

$2.2

billion

$600

million

$770

million

Share to state and local

governments

$740

million

$940

million

$250

million

$320

million

$880

million

$1.1

billion

$310

million

$390

million

Share to households, the

private sector, and other

nongovernmental entities

$6.0

billion

$7.5

billion

$2.0

billion

$2.6

billion

$7.0

billion

$8.9

billion

$2.5

billion

$3.2

billion

Table 4

Targeting Lead Paint Hazard Control to Older Low-Income Housing

Oers the Greatest Per-Dollar Beneﬁts

Cost-beneﬁt analysis by income, age of housing, and ﬂoor dust lead level

Continued on next page

* Results are based on dust lead levels of 10 or 20 as shown on the previous page.

Notes: Analysis is based on the 2018 birth cohort, estimated at approximately 4 million children, and includes beneﬁts for future cohorts.

Total future beneﬁts include small changes in incarceration costs not itemized in the table. Values may not add up to totals because of

rounding.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation

Pre-1960 homes Pre-1978 homes

All Low-income All Low-income

Costs

Cost of inspection per home $1,000

Total inspection costs $1.1 billion $320 million $1.9 billion $600 million

Cost of LHC per home $9,043 $8,269

Total LHC costs $7.3 billion $2.2 billion $8.4 billion $2.6 billion

Total costs $8.4 billion $2.5 billion $10.3 billion $3.2 billion

Net*

Net future beneﬁts

-$210

million

$1.9

billion

$230

million

$990

million

-$690

million

$1.8

billion

$200

million

$1.1

billion

Cost-beneﬁt ratio 0.97 1.23 1.09 1.39 0.93 1.17 1.06 1.35

Policy in Action: Financing Lead Paint Hazard Control

Massachusetts’ lead law, enacted in 1971, is one of the oldest in the country and requires that

any property built before 1978 and occupied by a child under 6 be “deleaded” by removing

or covering lead paint hazards.

The state also prohibits property owners from discriminating

against families with young children when renting or selling. To help homeowners pay for

abating lead hazards, including replacement of windows, Massachusetts oers income tax

credits of $500 and $1,500, depending on a property’s needs, and administers a series of loan

programs to support compliance with the law.

†

Massachusetts imposes surcharges of $25 to $100 on the annual fees of certain professional

licenses, including for real estate brokers, property and casualty insurance agents, mortgage

brokers and lenders, small loan agencies, and individuals who perform lead inspections.

‡

The

collected revenue, roughly $2.5 million annually, is deposited into the Lead Paint Education and

Training Trust Account for use by the state’s Department of Public Health.

In 2016, testing

found that of more than 175,000 Massachusetts children tested, just 686 under age 6 had

blood lead levels of 10 μg/dL or greater, compared with 3,095 of about 194,000 children tested

in 2001, the earliest date for which data are available online.

Continued on next page

* “What Does the Massachusetts Lead Law Require,” Massachusetts Executive Oce of Health and Human Services,

accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/programs/environmental-health/

exposure-topics/lead/lead/massachusetts-lead-law-requirement.html.

† Ibid.

‡ National Center for Healthy Housing, “Lead Education Trust Fund,” 2017, accessed June 14, 2017, http://www.nchh.

org/Portals/0/Contents/Alternative-Financing-Mechanism_Massachusetts_LETF.pdf.

§ National Center for Healthy Housing, “Lead Education Trust Fund”; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

“Building Blocks for Primary Prevention,” accessed Feb. 14, 2017, https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/publications/

building_blocks_for_primary_prevention.pdf.

|| Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Environmental Health, Environmental Public Health

Tracking, accessed May 24, 2017, http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/environmental/lead/stats/screening-

and-prevalence-statistics-by-community-cy-2016.pdf; Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of

Environmental Health, “Prevalence of Males and Females With Conﬁrmed Elevated BLLs >= 10 μg/dL, Screened in

2001 That Were Between 0 - <72 Months of Age,” Environmental Public Health Tracking, accessed June 6, 2017, table

generated from https://matracking.ehs.state.ma.us/Health-Data/Childhood_Blood_Lead_Levels.html.

Potential challenges

Stakeholders pointed to cost as the single biggest barrier to widespread implementation of lead paint hazard

control and suggested several ﬁnancing options, many of which are included in the recommendations. (See

Page 79.) At nearly $10,000 per unit, lead paint hazard control is unaordable for many low- and middle-

income Americans. Higher housing costs can have severe consequences for low-income residents if the cost of

replacement or abatement is passed on to them. Typical lower-income households spend 40 percent of their

income on housing,

102

suggesting many people are vulnerable to even small increases in rents or mortgages.

Unaordable housing can lead to evictions, foreclosures, and homelessness, which can have devastating eects

on the health of the family.

Stakeholders also highlighted many missed opportunities to inform renters and owners about potential risks. The

federal lead disclosure rule requires only that owners document known hazards before selling or renting a home,

not that they determine if lead is in fact present, and lead in water is not covered by the law. However, because

most homes in the country have not been inspected, most owners have nothing to disclose. States can expand

upon this federal law by requiring inspections during real estate transactions.

Remediating more than a million older low-income homes with children in the country will take time. Meanwhile,

preventive housing inspections can help identify hazards and compel action before a child becomes sick.

Although prevention is the most urgent and eective policy approach, when a child has already been poisoned,

environmental inspections are vital to identify the source and compel property owners to promptly ﬁx hazards.

States could prevent the proliferation of repeat-oender units by requiring landlords to ﬁx lead hazards before

re-renting a unit and could mandate inspections for all units in a building where one is found to have lead hazards.

This requirement would also create jobs because of increased demand for inspection and abatement, and those

jobs could be prioritized for low-income residents of the high-risk communities. According to one estimate,

addressing lead hazards in the highest-risk homes would create 50,000 to 75,000 jobs.

103

Chitose Suzuki/Associated Press

Stakeholders highlighted the lack of incentives and policies to encourage replacement of old windows as

another missed opportunity. For example, federal programs such as the Department of Energy’s (DOE)

Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) uses a “savings to investment ratio” to prioritize possible upgrades,

but guidance regarding the calculation of this ratio does not typically rank window replacement high among

WAP priorities. States and the DOE could adjust their approaches to this ratio to promote lead paint hazard

controls within the WAP.

Another potential barrier to hazard-reduction eorts is that lead-based paint is not part of property value

calculations for mortgage and appraisal purposes. For example, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

states that, for single-family properties it insures, the “[m]ortgagee must conﬁrm that the Property is free of

lead paint hazards.”

104

However, this determination is typically made based on a visual inspection, not a

determination by a licensed lead professional. Without mandatory inspections for lead paint and dust in pre-1978

units, appraisers cannot adjust the market price, provide buyers with important information, or encourage owners

to correct hazards, but state and federal home ﬁnancing programs could update their requirements to include

lead inspections.

Luis Benitez (left) and Jose Diaz remove lead paint in a contaminated building in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2006.

Lead Paint Hazards and Contaminated Soil at Schools and Child

Care Facilities

The most common sources of lead exposure in and around schools and child care settings are

lead-based paint, dust, and contaminated soil. (See “Air emissions and soil contamination” on

Page 57 for additional information about lead in soil.) This is a particular concern for young

children, because of their frequent and extensive contact with soil outside and with ﬂoors,

carpets, windows, and other indoor areas where dust gathers, as well as their frequent hand-

to-mouth activity.

• Approximately 65 percent of school facilities were constructed before 1980.

†

A 2014

national survey of schools and classrooms found that only about a third (34 percent) had

been inspected for lead in cracked or peeling paint in the preceding 12 months, and another

29 percent had already been identiﬁed as having lead paint hazards and remediated.

‡

• Further, a 2003 study based on data from a nationally representative sample of licensed

U.S. child care facilities showed that 14 percent have one or more lead-based paint hazards,

including 26 percent of those located in buildings built before 1960 compared with 4 percent

in newer buildings.

• Painted metal or wood playground equipment may also contain high levels of lead,

which becomes a risk as it ages.

A 1996 Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

investigation of 26 older playgrounds in 13 cities across 11 states found that 20 had

equipment with lead paint levels above 600 ppm, the CPSC’s standard at the time. In

addition, nine states and 19 cities tested 223 additional playgrounds and reported that

125 exceeded the CPSC standard.

Many of these playgrounds have probably been

replaced in the intervening 30 years, so these data should be interpreted with caution.

• One cross-sectional study of four inner-city child care facilities in New Orleans, which

involved testing the hands of 40 children before and after they played outside, found that

greater outdoor lead dust levels were correlated with higher levels on the children’s hands.

Remediating lead hazards in schools and child care facilities is subject to barriers similar to

those identiﬁed for home environments. Older buildings tend to have more problems and to be

in poorer communities with fewer resources; public schools in these places often have many

competing priorities for limited dollars. Without new funding, the cost of removing lead paint,

dust, and soil hazards may be a hardship for some school districts, as well as state and local

governments.

††

Grants for capital improvements and maintenance, particularly for schools in

high-risk communities and that serve low-income children, could help oset this burden and

improve health equity for these disadvantaged populations.

Continued on next page

One possible model for addressing lead hazards in schools would be the USDA’s Equipment

Assistance Grants program, which provides federal funds to state child nutrition agencies that

then competitively award grants to individual schools for the purchase of kitchen equipment

necessary to meet National School Lunch Program (NSLP) nutrition standards.

‡‡

The program

also prioritizes high-need schools where at least half of enrolled students are eligible for free or

reduced-price meals.

§§

In addition, the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant

Act included several changes to improve the health and safety of children in early care and

education settings that could provide a springboard for action on lead hazards. Speciﬁcally

it requires states to have health and safety regulations in place for providers serving

children funded by the grant and to include “building and physical premises safety” in

provider training.

|| ||

Focus group participants cited lead paint in child care facilities, especially those in historic

buildings, as a concern, reported diculty in ﬁnding information about lead risks in these

facilities, and recommended increased testing. In addition to citing cost as a potential burden

for child care providers, stakeholders pointed out that some people care for multiple children

but don’t have a license and so might not feel safe seeking help with identifying and abating

lead hazards.

According to a participant who worked at a child care center in a church, unlicensed providers

and facilities operated by religious institutions may also not be covered under existing

regulations, which could allow lead hazards to go unaddressed. Such unlicensed and “family and

friends” child care accounts for about half of all care provided to children

under 5.

Stakeholders in the national listening sessions suggested using local data to target information

to parents in high-risk areas. Schools also could be a good forum for reaching parents, including

expectant parents. Because of the legacy of lead paint, stakeholders also suggested engaging a

lead professional during the planning phase of school renovations.

* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “America’s Children and the Environment, Third Edition,” EPA 240-R-

13-001 (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, January 2013): 289, https://www.epa.gov/sites/

production/ﬁles/2015-06/documents/ace3_2013.pdf; Ronnie Levin et al., “Lead Exposures in U.S. Children,

2008: Implications for Prevention,” Environmental Health Perspectives 116, no. 10 (2008): 1285–93, https://dx.doi.

org/10.1289%2Fehp.11241; Howard W. Mielke et al., “The Urban Environment and Children’s Health: Soils as an

Integrator of Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium in New Orleans Louisiana, USA,” Environmental Research 81, no. 2 (1999):

117–29, https://doi.org/10.1006/enrs.1999.3966.

Continued on next page

† National Center for Education Statistics, “Public-Use Data Files and Documentation (FRSS 105): Condition of Public

School Facilities: 2012-13,” accessed April 6, 2017, https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/frss/downloads.asp.

‡ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “School Health Policies and Practice Study: Physical School

Environment,” accessed June 6, 2017, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/shpps/pdf/2014factsheets/phy_

sch_env_shpps2014.pdf.

§ David Marker et al., “First National Environmental Health Survey of Child Care Centers: Final Report” (Rockville,

MD: Westat Inc., 2003), http://www.nmic.org/nyccelp/documents/HUD_NEHSCCC.pdf.

|| “Protect Your Family from Exposures to Lead,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Oce of Pollution Prevention

and Toxics, accessed June 6, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/lead/protect-your-family-exposures-lead.

# Consumer Product Safety Commission, “CPSC Sta Recommendations for Identifying and Controlling Lead Paint

on Public Playground Equipment” (Washington: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, October 1996), http://

www.state.nj.us/dca/divisions/dhcr/rec/pdf/recleadpaint.pdf.

** Latonia Viverette et al., “Environmental Health in Minority and Other Underserved Populations: Benign Methods

for Identifying Lead Hazards at Day Care Centres of New Orleans,” Environmental Geochemistry and Health 18 no.

1 (1996): 41–45, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01757218; Howard W. Mielke et al., “The Urban Environment and

Children’s Health: Soils as an Integrator of Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium in New Orleans Louisiana, USA.”

†† Rafael Guerrero, “Local Schools Have Mixed Reactions to Bill That Would Require Lead Testing,” Chicago Tribune,

Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/elgin-courier-news/news/ct-ecn-schools-lead-testing-st-

0115-20170113-story.html.

‡‡ The Pew Charitable Trusts, “U.S. Department of Agriculture Equipment Grants Improve School Kitchens,” Kids' Safe

and Healthful Foods Project (June 2016), http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2016/

usda-school-kitchen-equipment-grants.

§§ U.S. Department of Agriculture, “2016 NSLP Equipment Assistance Grants,” Food and Nutrition Service (February

2016), https://www.fns.usda.gov/2016-nslp-equipment-assistance-grants.

|| || President’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, “Key Federal Programs to

Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures and Eliminate Associated Health Impacts” (November 2016), https://ptfceh.

niehs.nih.gov/features/assets/ﬁles/key_federal_programs_to_reduce_childhood_lead_exposures_and_eliminate_

associated_health_impactspresidents_508.pdf.

## U.S. Census Bureau, “Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2011” (2013), http://www.census.

gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf.

Safe renovation, repair, and painting enforcement

We bought the house in March of this year, and after buying the

house we found out that it had been painted last year, and when

the house was painted they took no precautions when they were

scraping o the lead paint.”

—Indianapolis resident

As discussed above, residential remediation is the primary strategy for preventing chronic exposure to lead dust.

However, renovation, repair, and painting activities in older homes are also a major source of lead exposure. The

use of safe work practices is critical for avoiding acute exposures from highly toxic dust, debris, and fumes that

can be created when homes undergo routine maintenance and repair, including dry scraping, power sanding, and

the use of torches and heat guns to remove paint, which in older homes is often lead-based.

105

Children can be

exposed to these hazards if the family is not relocated during the work, if dust hazards remain when the family

returns to the home, and if a parent is a contractor who brings home dust-contaminated clothes or shoes.

Unsafe and unregulated remodeling and renovation of older housing that contains lead-based paint pose

signiﬁcant hazards that can increase children’s blood lead levels by as much as 69 percent.

106

In a 2013 study,

276 children ranging in age from 6 months to 2 years whose housing underwent interior renovation had mean

blood lead levels at 2 years of age that were 12 percent higher than children whose homes were not renovated.

The study also found that the higher the lead paint content in the home, the more elevated the blood lead.

107

Studies have found that work done by parents and other do-it-yourselfers has been a factor in children’s high

blood lead levels.

108

For example, in 2006-07, a review of case records of children in New York state revealed

that 14 percent of children with blood lead levels at or above 20 μg/dL lived in homes that had undergone recent

renovations. Notably, residents performed 66 percent of these renovations, suggesting that while preventing

unsafe work by contractors is important, educating homeowners and renters about proper renovation practices

is also vital.

109

Although the 1992 Title X law directed EPA to require safe work practices similar to those for lead paint

abatement the agency did not ﬁnalize its rule for renovation activities until 2008.

110

The updated regulation went

into eect in April 2010 and set training requirements, standards, and enforcement mechanisms for renovations

that disturb paint in pre-1978 buildings.

The EPA supervises compliance with the rule through its 10 regional oces. The EPA is responsible for

enforcement in 36 states and has delegated this responsibility to 14 states. However, federal oversight is severely

underfunded. In its regulatory impact assessment, the EPA estimated that 11.4 million projects in pre-1978

homes and child care facilities would potentially fall under the scope of the rule each year, with about 4.4 million

required to follow its safe practices after subtracting minor maintenance projects and structures found not to

have lead.

111

Unfortunately, model codes which serve as the basis for many state and local housing regulations only require

any peeling paint in housing to be repaired. However, the codes do not explain how to perform the repairs

safely, nor do they reference the EPA’s requirements. Multiple eorts to ﬁx the codes have been rejected by the

governing International Code Council because of unfunded mandates and concerns about code ocials being

responsible for enforcement that the EPA should handle. Several state and local governments have found ways

to encourage compliance:

• New York City has a system to identify potentially unsafe renovations and intervene to prevent lead exposure.

Health department inspectors who observe uncontained paint dust or debris must take samples and stop the

work. Owners or contractors must then post a “conspicuous” sign with a phone number to access additional

information, including inspection results, until they have completed cleanup and undergone additional

inspections to conﬁrm that the source of potential lead exposure has been addressed.

112

When contractors

resume work, they must follow safe work practices that contain and minimize dust.

113

• In the District of Columbia, where an estimated 75 percent of housing was built before 1978, contractors

seeking permits for renovation must show proof of EPA-required training.

114

• Rhode Island requires contractors working in homes and child care facilities built before 1978 to hold a

Lead-Safe Remodeler/Renovator or higher certiﬁcation.

115

To ensure compliance, the cities of Providence

and Pawtucket will not issue permits for construction work at properties covered by the law without proof

of such licensure.

116

Stakeholder input

In stakeholder conversations, parents of children with a history of lead exposure frequently cited renovation as

the culprit. One mother explained that she rented a historic home after the owners completed a do-it-yourself

remodel. Flaking paint on the windows and doors contributed to her child’s high lead levels. A few other parents

related similar stories of their children coming into contact with lead during home remodeling, including

renovations completed by the parents themselves as well as contractors who lacked proper certiﬁcation.

One landlord pointed out that property owners who inherit buildings from family members may not know

about renovation, repair, and painting requirements and might attempt renovations without taking required

precautions, although most participants knew that they should seek out certiﬁed contractors. In some cases,

tenants distrusted the contractors hired by their landlords or felt that landlords hired the lowest bidder without

conﬁrming proper certiﬁcation. Residents and landlords alike suggested oering free certiﬁcation classes for

contractors and encouraging the hiring of local builders. Landlords recommended providing and encouraging

training for property managers and smaller renovators on lead-safe practices and requirements.

Proposed solution

According to the EPA, an estimated 4.4 million older homes need repairs and updates that could generate lead-

contaminated dust, debris, and fumes of the sort that many robust studies show could cause sharp spikes in

children’s blood lead levels.

117

Several localities have successfully implemented programs and policies to increase

the use of these safe practices. Yet focus group participants identiﬁed home repairs as an ongoing concern.

Drawing upon ﬁndings from the literature, expert input, the experience of community members, and state and

local examples, the research team modeled enforcement of the EPA’s policy requiring that renovations, repair, and

painting in homes with children and child care facilities built before 1978 use lead-safe work practices.

Literature summary

Evidentiary support: Scientiﬁcally supported. Strategies have been tested in multiple robust studies with

consistently favorable results.

118

Population aected: Regional or national.

119

Modeling assumptions

• Using an EPA model which suggests that following lead-safe renovation practices would prevent a 1.08 μg/dL

increase in blood lead levels of children, the team modeled the eect of compliance with the renovation rule

enforcement on a single birth cohort, in terms of lifetime earnings, health and education expenditures, and

QALYs.

120

(See Table 5.)

• The costs and the number of renovation events are based on the EPA’s regulatory impact analysis for the rule.

The impact analysis included the costs of testing, increased training and education for renovators, government

certiﬁcation and enforcement, and additional necessary supplies, such as plastic sheeting.

121

The study team

added costs associated with conducting full dust clearance testing after a renovation to ensure a home is

completely safe. The EPA analysis suggested that approximately 1.27 million children age 6 and younger would

be protected by the rule and assumed an achievable compliance rate of 75 percent.

122

The research team assumed, therefore, that a cohort of children born in the same year would be equal to that

ﬁgure divided by six, or approximately 211,000. The cost calculations also include clearance dust testing following

renovations, which the EPA does not require, because evidence indicates that it is necessary to conﬁrm the safety

of a structure.

123

The team included the annual cost of compliance for all homes and child care facilities built

before 1978, but only counted beneﬁts for children from the 2018 cohort living in those homes or visiting those

facilities. The calculations exclude beneﬁts for children who may visit during a renovation activity or may move

into a remediated house in the future.

The federal estimates, and thus the models used in this study, exclude do-it-yourself renovations, which are not

regulated by the EPA. However, one analysis found that these projects accounted for most renovation-related

lead poisoning.

124

Findings

The analysis found that, for children born in 2018, rigorous enforcement of the EPA’s rule would:

• Protect 211,000 children from lead exposure in those settings.

• Cost about $1.4 billion.

• Provide positive net beneﬁts of approximately $3 billion, including:

• $990 million for the federal government.

• $500 million for state and local governments.

• Return $3.10 for every dollar invested. (See Table 5.)

Table 5

Lead-Safe Renovation Could Yield $3.10 Per $1 Invested

Beneﬁts of EPA rule enforcement

Baseline estimates

Average blood lead level for children if no intervention 1.25 μg /dL

Number of children in homes with covered events 211,000

Total number of renovation events 11.4 million

Number of renovations requiring safe work practices 4.4 million

Predicted impacts Prevented increase in blood lead per child 1.08 μg /dL

Gross future beneﬁts Earnings $4.1 billion

Health savings $90 million

Education savings $90 million

Quality-adjusted life years beneﬁts $160 million

Total gross future beneﬁts $4.5 billion

Share to the federal government $990 million

Share to state and local governments $500 million

Share to households, the private sector, and other

nongovernmental entities

$3.0 billion

Costs

Testing cost per renovation event $10

Total testing cost $110 million

Lead-safe work practices per renovation event $302

Total lead-safe work practices $1.3 billion

Total costs $1.4 billion

Net

Net future beneﬁts $3.0 billion

Cost-beneﬁt ratio 3.10

Notes: Analysis is based on the 2018 birth cohort, estimated at approximately 4 million children. Total future beneﬁts include small changes

in incarceration costs not itemized in the table. Values may not add up to totals because of rounding.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation

Potential challenges

The modeled policy is unique among those studied in its simplicity and low cost, which is a primary driver of its

high cost-beneﬁt ratio. Training for renovators in the EPA’s required protocol is widely available. However, the lack

of enforcement undercuts the rule’s protectiveness because contractors can avoid compliance without penalty.

Based on stakeholder feedback, consumer knowledge of the rule remains low. State and local governments

have the opportunity to codify EPA’s requirements or adopt their own laws and to conduct aggressive public

outreach about lead-safe renovation practices, but only a few have done so. Although all 4.4 million renovation

events undertaken each year in the U.S. probably do not require direct EPA or state oversight and supervising

every jobsite would be impractical, the large number of renovations that go unchecked are a missed opportunity

for protecting children. The EPA has only authorized 14 states to enforce the rule, but it could encourage more

states to apply for delegated authority. Additionally, the EPA could increase high-proﬁle enforcement to promote

contractors’ awareness of the rule and adherence to its requirements.

Jessica Grin/PhillyNews.com

Jana Curtis and her children walk past a construction site next to their Philadelphia neighborhood park in April 2017. Curtis's 3-year-old

daughter was poisoned by lead in the soil in their backyard and from construction dust in the neighborhood.

Air emissions and soil contamination

I grew up in the country digging in the dirt and gardening and stu,

and that’s not a reality for my kid.”

—Baltimore resident

Even as the nation struggles to address the legacy of lead in homes, yards, and drinking water, more lead is being

introduced into the environment every day. Most emissions result from mobile sources such as the use of leaded

fuels in smaller piston-engine aircraft, followed by mining and smelting, factories that use lead, and electric power

plants that burn coal and other contaminated fuels.

125

(See Figure 4.)

In 2008, the EPA decreased the acceptable level of lead concentration in air—the primary National Ambient Air

Quality Standard (NAAQS)—from 1.5 to 0.15 μg /m

to better protect children and other at-risk populations. The

Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee recommended a more signiﬁcant reduction to 0.02 μg /m

because of the unique eects on children, particularly children of color.

126

Under current regulation, state and

environmental agencies that track lead in the air must place monitors at non-airport facilities that reported lead

emissions of a half-ton or more per year and at airports with documented emissions of 1 ton or more per year.

127

456.3

Piston engine

aircraft

5.0

Other

transportation

156.8

Industrial

processes

Fuel

combustion

Other

Waste

disposal

92.6

4.7

14.0

Notes: Other transportation includes locomotives, commercial marine vessels, diesel heavy-duty vehicles. Industrial processes include

activities involving ferrous (iron-containing) and nonferrous metals, mining, oil and gas production, pulp and paper production, cement

manufacturing, and petroleum reﬁning. Fuel combustion includes electricity generation, the use of industrial boilers/internal combustion

engines, and the burning of residential oil, commercial natural gas, and coal. Waste disposal includes livestock waste and ﬁeld burning.

Other includes dust, agriculture, gas stations, and solvents, comprising industrial surface coatings and degreasing agents.

Source: EPA, “2014 National Emissions Inventory Data” (2014), https://www.epa.gov/air-emissions-inventories/2014-national-emissions-

inventory-nei-data

Figure 4

Piston Engine Aircraft and Industrial Processes Make Up the

Majority of Lead Emissions

Lead emissions by source in tons, 2014

Lead in the air eventually makes its way into the top layer of soil, which children may ingest directly or be

exposed to if it contaminates toys or is tracked into homes.

128

The most recent nationally representative survey

of residential yards documented a mean soil lead level of 169 ppm, which is less than the EPA’s standard of

400 ppm for areas where children play, but this average can obscure signiﬁcant site-speciﬁc contamination.

For example, a property near the East Chicago public housing development had levels of 54,900 ppm.

129

Importantly, the risks of lead in soil are not equally distributed. Two observational studies from New Orleans

suggest that children exposed to higher levels of lead in soil are more likely to be black, have low socioeconomic

status, and live in inner cities without safe outdoor play areas that are free from harmful lead.

130

The relationship between soil lead and children’s blood lead has been the subject of several analyses with

ﬁndings showing increases in blood lead of 0.12 to 1.4 μg/dL per 100 ppm lead in soil.

131

One study found that at

lower levels of lead in soil (i.e., below 100 ppm) the relationship between lead in soil and in blood is steeper than

at higher levels (i.e., above 300 ppm).

132

Despite the need for a cost-eective approach to soil lead remediation, the peer-reviewed studies evaluating

soil interventions are limited.

133

One randomized control trial study published in 1993 evaluated the dierence in

children’s blood lead levels before remediation and again 11 months after and found that among the group whose

homes received treatment, average blood lead was 1.28 μg/dL lower than the comparison group. The blood

lead decline associated with soil remediation ranged from 0.8 to 1.6 μg/dL after adjusting for other factors.

134

Conversely, one study found no reduction in blood lead after soil remediation, despite an average reduction in soil

lead from 501 to 34 ppm.

135

More recently, a case study review article assessed changes in blood lead and identiﬁed 13 relevant studies.

136

Twelve of those demonstrated decreases in blood lead or in the proportion of children with high levels after

treatment. The authors found that most soil remediation eorts have focused on Superfund sites or individual

neighborhoods with lead smelters that have aected nearby residences. They noted that low-cost solutions

are needed in cases where no “responsible party” is available to pay for cleanup, such as large residential

communities contaminated by past industry or gasoline emissions. Some options proposed by the authors

include the use of biosolid and compost-based soil products to build raised bed gardens; the use of biochar—

charcoal produced from plant or animal waste matter—which immobilizes lead in soil; and watering of lawns

to prevent soil resuspension in warm, dry months.

137

Lead smelting and battery recycling facilities

The production of lead, from mining and primary smelting—a process that uses high temperatures and chemical

oxidation to produce lead from ore—as well as from recycling of lead-containing products, such as car batteries

and electronic devices, referred to as secondary smelting, can cause widespread contamination of air and soil in

surrounding communities. According to the EPA, more than 80,000 people experienced elevated health threats

from 15 secondary lead smelters located in 10 states and Puerto Rico.

138

These communities typically have a

higher proportion of people of color (41 percent nonwhite) and more Latino and Hispanic residents (52 percent)

than the population as a whole (25 percent and 14 percent, respectively).

139

More recently, Exide plants in Vernon,

California (described later in this report); Frisco, Texas; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, permanently closed, and one

was constructed in Florence, South Carolina, bringing the total number of active facilities at the time of this report

to 13.

140

Secondary smelting has increased as the value of lead has risen on international markets,

141

and no complete

account of current and historical secondary lead smelting sites in the U.S. exists. A 2001 study found that the

EPA’s centralized index of regulated facilities listed only 32 percent of existing sites.

142

Research indicates that

many are located in or near residential areas, suggesting that they have produced or are causing widespread

contamination of nearby neighborhood soil.

143

For example, between 2001 and 2009, 22 lead-emitting facilities

operated in Detroit.

144

These data highlight the need to monitor secondary smelter sites and identify and measure

lead concentrations in residential soils close to legacy sites.

A sign warns residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, to avoid playing in the dirt where high levels of lead

and arsenic were discovered in 2016.

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Superfund sites

In 1992, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) ranked lead as the number one priority

hazardous substance at sites included on the EPA’s national priorities list (NPL), an inventory of the most

contaminated places in the country, known as Superfund sites. The Comprehensive Environmental Response,

Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which is the Superfund law, typically requires identiﬁcation of

a “principal responsible party” (e.g., smelter, mine, manufacturing plant, or other facility) that caused the

contamination and outlines steps to reduce hazards such as excavating and replacing contaminated soil, cleaning

up interior dust, and, in limited circumstances, stabilizing exterior paint to preserve soil treatment.

The EPA has documented lead contamination at 66 percent of the 1,300 Superfund sites across the country.

CERCLA does not apply to the many other facilities and communities with lead contaminated soil that do not

appear on the NPL, including more than 450 EPA-identiﬁed sites where lead was produced or used.

145

Lead dust

from industrial facilities can contaminate surrounding soil, creating a hidden source of exposure for communities.

In 2016, the EPA found that 800,000 children under 18 reside within roughly one mile of active Superfund sites.

146

A small but consistent set of local studies demonstrates an association between elevated blood lead in children

and residing near a Superfund site. One study of shuttered industrial facilities and the long-term risks they pose

determined that children living near one such abandoned factory in Philadelphia were more than four times as

likely as the general population to have elevated blood lead levels, but the investigators were not able to verify

that the facility was the source of the lead from the tested homes.

147

Similarly, children living near the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in northern Idaho were exposed to high levels of lead

in the mid-1970s; in 1974 more than 95 percent of children within 3 miles of the smelter had blood lead levels

over 40 μg/dL.

148

The Bunker Hill cleanup strategy included remediating nearby homes and soil. In 2001, only

3 percent of children in neighboring residential areas had blood lead levels over 10 μg/dL.

149

A 1999 observational study of four Superfund sites examined whether soil lead could be a predictor of blood lead

in children. Researchers evaluated blood lead measurements and environmental samples from soil, house dust,

interior paint, and tap water collected for the 1,015 children in the ATSDR’s multisite lead and cadmium study.

After adjusting for income, education of the parents, presence of a smoker in the household, gender, and dust

lead, the authors found a statistically signiﬁcant association between lead in soil and in blood independent of

home dust lead levels; however, the model also had high levels of uncertainty and variability.

150

Policy in Action: Superfund Cleanup

In 1998, the Omaha, Nebraska, City Council requested assistance from the EPA after blood

tests conducted by the Douglas County Health Department revealed that nearly 10 percent

of tested children in the county had blood lead levels higher than 10 μg/dL.

The EPA began

investigating contamination from historic smelting and reﬁning operations under its Superfund

authority, and in 2003, approximately 14 square miles of property in East Omaha was deemed

at high risk and added to the national priorities list.

†

Cleanup included soil testing at child care facilities, schools, playgrounds, parks, and homes;

removal and replacement of contaminated soil; and planting of new sod and grass seed. The

EPA funded an interior dust program to provide residents who had their soil remediated with

education and a free vacuum.

‡

To date, the EPA has tested nearly 40,000 properties, cleaned up

more than 12,000 that were polluted, and awarded $40 million to the city of Omaha through a

cooperative agreement to address the ﬁnal phases of the work, including continued attempts to

collect soil samples and clean up remaining contaminated properties.

A lead-acid battery recycling plant in Vernon, California, which opened in 1922, contributed to

air pollution in the nearby Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, for more than 90 years.

The plant logged at least 88 violations of emissions standards between 1996 and 2015.

The

facility, which was purchased by Exide Technologies in 2000, ran seven days a week, processing

25,000 batteries a day and emitting lead, arsenic, and other pollutants into the air.

Continued on next page

In 2013, after the South Coast Air Quality Management District found the plant “posed a higher

cancer risk to more people than any of 450 operations the agency has regulated in the last

25 years,” the state temporarily shut it down.

Exide was able to get the closure overturned

quickly, driving advocates to take further action. In 2014, the EPA found that Exide had violated

the Clean Air Act emissions standards more than 30 times and was subject to ﬁnes of up to

$37,500 a day for each violation. The ruling resulted in the plant’s second temporary closure.

††

At the same time, Exide was under criminal investigation and entered into an agreement with

the U.S. attorney’s oce to avoid prosecution in exchange for permanently closing the plant

and paying $50 million to tear it down and clean the site, including $9 million for removing

lead from nearby homes

.‡‡

In April 2016, California appropriated an additional $177 million to

clean up about a 2-mile radius surrounding the plant and intends to seek reimbursement from

the company.

§§

* Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry , “ATSDR Releases Public Health Assessment Concerning Lead

for the Omaha Lead Site, Omaha, Neb.,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/news/displaynews.

asp?PRid=1979.

† United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Site Information for Omaha Lead,” accessed Jan.13, 2017, https://

archive.epa.gov/region07/cleanup/npl-archive/web/pdf/record_of_decision.pdf.

‡ Environmental Protection Agency, “Site Information for Omaha Lead.”

§ The Chicago Tribune, “Violent Crime Part of Lead’s Toxic Legacy,” Omaha World-Herald, June 14, 2016, http://www.

omaha.com/eedition/sunrise/articles/violent-crime-part-of-lead-s-toxic-legacy/article_b4865302-fa82-5e76-

84a6-c1fe9b80e154.html; Brandon McDermott, “Where Does Omaha Stand After 15 Years of EPA Cleanup?,”

KNVO News, May 16, 2014, http://www.kvnonews.com/2014/05/omaha-stand-15-years-epa-cleanup; Steve

Kemp, “Going Home to Manage the Final Steps of Omaha’s Historic Lead Cleanup,” The EPA Blog, May 25, 2016,

http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2016/05/going-home-to-manage-the-ﬁnal-steps-of-omahas-historic-lead-cleanup.

|| Molly Peterson, “State Toxic Regulators Give Exide 30 Days to Correct Permit Problems,” Southern California Public

Radio, June 17, 2014, http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/06/17/44788/state-toxics-regulators-give-exide-30-days-

to-corr/; Tony Barboza, “Exide’s Troubled History: Years of Pollution Violations but Few Penalties,” Los Angeles

Times, March 14, 2015, http://graphics.latimes.com/exide-battery-plant.

# Tony Barboza, “How a Battery Recycler Contaminated L.A.-Area Homes for Decades,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 21,

2015, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-exide-cleanup-story-so-far-20151121-story.html.

** Jessica Garrison and Kim Christensen, “Vernon Plant Closed Over Toxics,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2013, http://

articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/25/local/la-me-exide-arsenic-20130425.

†† Ibid.; Tony Barboza, “How a Battery Recycler Contaminated L.A.-Area Homes for Decades.”

‡‡ Haley Branson-Potts, “Vernon Battery Recycler Cited by EPA for Excessive Lead Emissions,” Los Angeles Times,

May 23, 2014, http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0524-epa-exide-20140524-story.html; Environmental

Protection Agency, “Annual Air Quality Monitoring Network Plan,” July 2015, https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/amtic/

ﬁles/networkplans/CASCAQMDPlan2015.pdf.

§§ “$177 Million for Exide Cleanup Signed Into Law,” Southern California Public Radio, April 20, 2016, http://www.scpr.

org/news/2016/04/20/59806/177-million-for-exide-cleanup-signed-into-law.

Policy in Action: Imposing a Fee on Emitters to Fund Public Lead

Remediation Programs

In the mid-1980s, the California Legislature declared childhood lead poisoning to be the

state’s most signiﬁcant environmental health problem and subsequently established a

prevention program within the Department of Public Health.

To help pay for the program, in

1993, California adopted an annual fee on manufacturers and other entities involved with the

production or sale of lead and lead-based products collected from businesses in the petroleum

and architectural coatings industries and from facilities reporting releases of lead into the air.

The department employs a “historical market share attributions” concept to estimate each

payer’s long-term contribution to environmental lead contamination and allocate fees. It then

deploys collected funds to support health care referrals, assessments of homes for hazards,

and educational activities. The fee generated $20.6 million in ﬁscal 2015.

†

* Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy, “California: The Leader in Lead Regulation,” accessed Jan. 12, 2017,

http://www.changecalifornia.org/2010/08/lead.html.

† California State Board of Equalization, “Supporting Our Communities: Funding a Better Quality of Life,” accessed

Jan. 12, 2017, http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/pub306.pdf.

Stakeholder input

Several focus group participants identiﬁed lead in soil as a concern, and a few parents said it was the source

of exposure for their children’s elevated blood lead. Los Angeles focus group participants expressed concerns

about children in a community near a smelter coming into contact with lead through soil at bus stops or while

playing in sprinklers. Community members in Baltimore said they kept their children from playing outside in the

dirt, digging, planting, climbing trees, or picking up worms. Other focus group participants reported gardening

in raised beds to avoid exposing their children to produce contaminated by lead, and in Chicago, one person

described a program where farmers brought fruits and vegetables to a school to give residents access to local

produce grown in safe soil.

Many participants wanted more transparency and better communications about lead hazards in their

neighborhoods. Residents in Philadelphia related how when the EPA came to their community to test soil and

children’s blood lead levels many people distrusted the researchers and didn’t answer their doors or participate

in the tests, suggesting a need for improved communication in the future. Others worried that residents who

participated in inspections would be unintentionally penalized and experience ﬁnancial strain or diculty selling

their homes because of disclosure requirements. Participants also were concerned about lingering contamination

in their neighborhoods even after industrial sites had been cleaned up, and some called for safer handling of

Increasing the number of sites placed on the NPL and ﬁnancing cleanup when no responsible industry party can

be identiﬁed are critical needs for scaling cleanup eorts. CERCLA initially gave the EPA authority to tax crude oil,

imported petroleum products, and hazardous chemicals and to use those funds for Superfund-related activities.

However, that provision of the law expired in 1996, severely reducing the resources available for cleaning up

contaminated sites.

industrial lead waste and disclosure of information about its location. A few individuals also worried about

exposure resulting from parents’ unintentionally carrying home lead from their workplaces on their clothing or

shoes. Participants discussed job loss as a potential disadvantage to increasing regulations on industry.

Proposed solution

Several policy interventions are available that could address industry-related lead soil contamination, such

as reducing emissions from secondary lead smelters, increasing public funding, and prioritization of cleanup,

particularly at sites where no responsible industry party exists to ﬁnance the work. To protect against lead risks

for food grown at home, the EPA has recommended practices for gardeners working in soil containing more

than 100 ppm lead (soil lead levels can be tested by private or university labs

151

), including building raised beds,

planting in containers, wearing gloves, using tools, restricting gardening by and for children, and selecting plants

with shallow roots.

152

Quantitatively modeling these strategies on a national basis was both beyond the scope of

this study and deemed by the team to present a signiﬁcant chance of inaccuracy because soil exposure is highly

dependent on community context.

Literature summary

Evidentiary support: Some evidence. Strategies with this rating are likely to work, but further research is needed

to conﬁrm eects. These strategies have been tested more than once and results trend favorable overall.

153

Population aected: Community.

154

Leaded aviation gas

Leaded fuel used by piston engine aircraft is the nation’s largest source of lead emissions into the air, with

approximately 167,000 aircraft emitting about 450 tons a year.

155

These planes constitute 71 percent of the

U.S. air ﬂeet, and many of them require high-octane gasoline to avoid dangerous engine knocking. Lead is one

of the best known ingredients for raising octane, and eliminating its use would require modiﬁcations to a

Je Schultz/Getty Images

Lead levels in the ground and in the air can be higher near airports that serve piston engine aircraft, such as this one.

signiﬁcant share of existing planes.

156

However, research suggests that most planes could safely make the

transition to unleaded fuel at little cost if airports provided appropriate alternatives to leaded gas, and most

new aircraft are certiﬁed to run on ethanol-free automobile gasoline.

157

In 2010, the EPA estimated that about half of lead emissions from aircraft remains in the vicinity of the airport,

and that approximately 16 million people live near the roughly 20,000 U.S. airports that serve aircraft running

on leaded fuel and 3 million children attend school near these airports.

158

Most of these are small, general

aviation facilities serving civilian, noncommercial ﬂights, such as private or corporate planes, ﬂying schools, and

sightseeing tours.

159

In one study, children who lived within 0.6 miles of an airport were found to have blood lead

levels that are 5.7 percent higher than those of children residing more than 2.5 miles from airports.

160

Stakeholder input

Community members in Los Angeles mentioned lead in aviation gas as a concern, and experts identiﬁed it as

an important contributor to air emissions. Additionally, the experts suggested that removing lead from the fuel

would decrease pilots’ and aircraft fuelers’ contact with lead, potentially reducing take-home exposure.

Proposed solution

The team modeled the eect on blood lead in children residing within about 0.6 mile of airports serving piston

engine aircraft of prohibiting the use of lead in aircraft fuel.

Literature summary

Evidentiary support: Some evidence. These strategies have been tested more than once and results trend

favorable overall.

161

Population aected: Community.

162

Assumptions

• The team used data from a cross-sectional study to determine that children living closer than 0.6 miles

from airports using leaded gas have blood lead levels that are 5.7 percent higher than those of children living

farther away.

163

• EPA data show that about 5.7 percent of the U.S. population resides within 0.6 miles of an airport that serves

piston engine aircraft, so the study team applied this percentage to the 2018 birth cohort to predict that

226,000 children would live within that radius of such airports.

164

• Baseline blood lead levels for children living in close proximity to airports serving piston engine aircraft were

based on NHANES 2011-14 data and mirror the national average.

Findings

Removing lead from aviation gas would:

• Prevent an increase in blood lead levels of 5.7 percent.

• Protect 226,000 children born in 2018.

• Provide positive beneﬁts of approximately $262 million, including:

• $60 million for the federal government.

• $30 million for state and local governments. (See Table 6.)

In the absence of cost data, the team did not compute a cost-beneﬁt ratio for this intervention.

Baseline estimates

Number and percentage of children expected to live within

0.6 miles of airports serving piston engine aircraft

226,000 (5.7%)

Average blood lead levels for children

if no intervention

1.11 μg /dL

Predicted impacts

Prevented increases in blood lead levels per child 5.7%

Children aected 226,000

Gross future beneﬁts

Earnings $240 million

Health savings $6 million

Education savings $6 million

Quality-adjusted life years beneﬁts $10 million

Total gross future beneﬁts $262 million

Share to the federal government $60 million

Share to state and local governments $30 million

Share to households, the private sector, and other

nongovernmental entities

$170 million

Notes: Analysis is based on the 2018 birth cohort, estimated at approximately 4 million children total. Total future beneﬁts include small

changes in incarceration costs not itemized in the table. Values may not add up to totals because of rounding.

Source: Altarum Institute Value of Prevention Tool calculation

Table 6

Removing Lead From Aviation Fuel Could Prevent a 5.7% Increase in

Children’s Blood Lead

Beneﬁts, assuming about 230,000 children

Potential challenges

In 2012, the FAA estimated that phasing out leaded fuel would take 11 years.

165

According to a recent federal task

force report, the FAA is working to identify unleaded alternative fuels for most piston engine aircraft by 2018, and

under section 231 of the Clean Air Act, the EPA is evaluating whether lead emissions from aviation fuel “cause

or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

166

Based

on the results of its investigation, the EPA could help to expedite the elimination of lead in aviation fuel by using

its authority under the act to issue an “endangerment ﬁnding,” indicating that leaded aircraft fuel emissions are

polluting and harmful to public health. Such a ruling would trigger the FAA to issue standards.

Given the protracted timelines for federal action, however, states may wish to take steps to address the problem

by, for example, requiring all general aviation airports to provide unleaded gas or establishing fees or taxes on

airports serving piston engine aircraft to support the cleanup of the soil in parks and near homes, schools, and

child care facilities.

Policy in Action: Safe Soil for Schools and Child Care

In New Orleans, the use of leaded gasoline contributed signiﬁcantly to elevated soil lead levels,

particularly in transit-heavy areas downtown. Research estimates that vehicles deposited more

than 10,000 metric tons of lead dust in New Orleans soil between 1950 and 1985.

In 2004, more than 40 percent of New Orleans soils exceeded the EPA’s cleanup standard.

†

But

a year later, storm surges and ﬂooding from Hurricane Katrina deposited cleaner, less hazardous

surface soil over the high-lead topsoil, which, combined with citywide cleanup and remediation

eorts, reduced lead dust in homes and surrounding soil.

‡

Lead assessments conducted in

Katrina’s immediate aftermath found a 46 percent reduction in median soil lead levels.

And the

declines continued. Before the storm, 15 of the city’s 46 census tract neighborhoods exceeded

the EPA’s regulatory soil lead standards; by 2010, only six neighborhoods exceeded standards.

Inspired by the city’s unique natural experiment, researchers used a similar approach to clean

up soil at 10 child care centers in New Orleans, covering lead-contaminated surface soils with a

water-permeable barrier and 6-inch layer of low-lead soil.

Since 2005, nine of 10 federal public

housing projects in the city also were rebuilt using this process.

New Orleans expanded this

practice to all public parks and playgrounds that tested high for lead.

††

These eorts, combined

with the potential reduction of lead in soil from fresh topsoil deposited by the storm surge

during Hurricane Katrina, led to a decrease in the percentage of children from high-lead, largely

inner-city areas with blood lead of at least 5 μg/dL from 64 percent in 2005 to 19 percent

in 2015.

‡‡

* Howard W.Mielke et al., “Environmental and Health Disparities in Residential Communities of New Orleans: The

Need for Soil Lead Intervention to Advance Primary Prevention,” Environment International 51 (2013): 73-81, https://

doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2012.10.013.

† Janet Pelley, “Lead a Hazard in Post-Katrina Sludge,” Environmental Science & Technology 40, no. 2 (2006): 414–15,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16468382.

‡ Howard W. Mielke et al., “Spatiotemporal Dynamic Transformations of Soil Lead and Children’s Blood Lead Ten

Years After Hurricane Katrina: New Grounds for Primary Prevention,” Environment International 94 (2016): 567–75,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2016.06.017.

§ Sammy Zahran et al., “New Orleans Before and After Hurricanes Katrina/Rita: A Quasi-Experiment of the

Association Between Soil Lead and Children’s Blood Lead,” Environmental Science & Technology 44, no. 12 (2010):

4433–40, https://doi.org/10.1021/es100572s.

|| Ibid.

# Howard Mielke et al., “Soil Intervention as a Strategy for Lead Exposure Prevention: the New Orleans Lead-

Safe Childcare Playground Project,” Environmental Pollution 159 (2011): 2071–77, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.

envpol.2010.11.008.

** Mielke et al., “Spatiotemporal Dynamic Transformations of Soil Lead and Children’s Blood Lead Ten Years After

Hurricane Katrina.”

†† Ibid.

‡‡ Ibid.

Addressing data gaps

We need some data. We need to get children tested. Once we have

that data, we will have a game plan. If 80 percent of our kids have

lead, then we have an epidemic. We can raise our voices and perhaps

get something done.”

—New Orleans resident

Data play an important role in the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to childhood lead exposure by

helping to identify high-risk locations, assessing testing rates among high-risk groups, evaluating the impact

of remediation eorts, and detecting housing units responsible for multiple exposures over time. However,

inadequate investment in state and local technology and limited capacity for timely data collection, processing,

and sharing impede the ability of agencies at all levels of government to provide the public with transparent

data on the highest-risk areas and to protect privacy.

But even if these data were collected, no federal agency curates or integrates national blood lead and

environmental information into a single database. For example, the National Health and Nutrition Examination

Survey provides the best available blood lead data, and the American Healthy Housing Survey is the best

estimate of lead paint hazards, but because these are two separate databases, research on the issue is needlessly

complicated. Further, data are rarely available at a census tract level or ﬁner, and county-level data obscure

neighborhood risks because exposure can vary block by block depending, for example, on the location of

industrial sources or the age of buildings and water infrastructure.

In addition to the need for better community-level information about lead, the research team identiﬁed several

signiﬁcant research gaps during the course of this study. The questions include epidemiologic research to

establish the dose-response relationships between levels of lead in the environment and lower blood lead levels;

research on the eectiveness of prevention and response interventions; data on the geographic location of certain

lead risks and any populations that are at high risk of exposure; and information about valid testing methods.

Community members and landlords wanted more sharing of information about issues aecting their

neighborhoods. Spanish-speaking residents in Flint, for example, explained that the Latino community didn’t

learn about the water crisis until Univision reported on the issue four months after the story ﬁrst broke. This

oversight speaks to the importance of cultural competency, that is the “ability to address [people’s] diverse

values, beliefs and behaviors,” in response programs to ensure that they promote equity by meeting the needs

of the populations at risk.

167

Some parents noted that messages about lead dangers tend to focus on speciﬁc populations, for example,

Medicaid-eligible children, at the risk of overlooking others, such as children from middle-income families

exposed to lead through home renovations.

Many community members expressed distrust in industries, inspectors, and the agencies that they feel should

be tracking information and protecting citizens. In Los Angeles, participants suspected that industry-hired

researchers manipulated data about blood lead levels in children from dierent neighborhoods to make the case

that a nearby battery facility hadn’t exposed children to harmful levels of lead.

Focus group participants suggested making neighborhood-level data publicly available to help community

members, policymakers, and the medical community detect possible sources of exposure and address high

lead levels in children. They felt that sharing these data by census tract or ZIP code could help pediatricians and

obstetricians identify patients at a high risk of lead exposure in their homes or yards. Participants also supported

community-based science and research, in which community members could be trained to collect samples from

their homes and neighborhoods and help with sharing data.

Some state laws may make it dicult to share data publicly or between responding agencies such as schools

and public health departments. Further, although cooperative agreements require states and cities to submit

blood lead surveillance data to the CDC, many states do not receive CDC funding and so are under no obligation

to submit data. Similarly, states and localities do not categorize lead as a reportable disease, which means that

laboratories across the country do not consistently convey all results of blood lead tests to health departments,

and even when those data are shared, considerable time typically elapses before the public is made aware of

neighborhood or other trends.

Future research could address the most pressing knowledge gaps, such as:

Water: Several municipalities, including Cincinnati, the District of Columbia, and Boston, have inventoried

their LSLs and made the information publicly available, and California and Ohio have passed laws requiring the

creation of such records.

168

However, no recent and rigorous national surveys have estimated the number of

LSLs in operation nationwide. Similarly, information on the extent of lead-leaching internal plumbing in homes

across the country is scarce. Finally, protocols for sampling water from homes and schools should be updated

and validated.

Housing: The evaluation of HUD’s lead hazard control program is the largest study of strategies to address lead

paint hazards in housing. Limitations of the study include that the units were not randomly selected, the omission

of a control or comparison group for ethical reasons, and that it was conducted when blood lead levels and the

amount of lead in the environment were higher. As a result, new assessments of this program are needed, as are

other studies to rigorously investigate the extent of lead paint hazards and resultant child exposures.

Epidemiology of blood and environmental lead levels: Declining blood lead levels and the technology to detect

lower amounts of lead in the environment create new research opportunities. New studies should include

epidemiologic research on the relationship between lead exposure and various sources such as food, water, soil,

air, dust, and paint, as well as better national and community-level data on risks by geography and population.

Future studies could examine the eect of blood lead levels below 2 μg/dL on IQ. Additionally, a longitudinal

study tracking IQ and lead exposure through childhood and adulthood could strengthen the evidence of the link

between lead exposure and lifetime earnings.

Educational interventions: No studies have measured the eectiveness of educational, social, or

behavioral interventions for children with a history of lead poisoning. Research is needed to identify practices

and pedagogies that can help children with elevated blood lead levels avoid or overcome cognitive and

behavioral challenges.



Supporting children with a history of lead exposure

Children aected by lead who can’t focus in class get separated from

the other students and labeled a trouble child.”

—Los Angeles resident

Prevention is the most critical and ﬁrst approach to addressing childhood lead exposure, but those eorts

have come too late for many children. Children exposed to lead may demonstrate delays in development of

language skills, problems focusing, poor impulse control, and disruptive behavior. They are more likely to be

diagnosed with a learning disability, to struggle to pass achievement tests, and to have lower IQs and worse

academic achievement than other children.

169

Recent research has found that among young adults exposed to

lead as children, the areas of the brain important for language can reorganize to facilitate language; however

this reorganization does not necessarily compensate for the eects of lead on language function.

170

Research

suggests that exposure to lead has particularly detrimental eects on children's executive functioning, such as

working memory, mental ﬂexibility, and self-control. These skills help children retain and manipulate information

over short periods; sustain or shift attention in response to dierent demands; set priorities; and resist impulsive

actions, responses, or judgments.

171

If children do not receive appropriate early interventions, lead-related deﬁcits

can ripple through their lives. For example, attention deﬁcit hyperactivity disorder, which is common among lead-

poisoned children, is a strong predictor of social isolation, which in turn can decrease school success and increase

risky behaviors.

172

All of these problems become risk factors for delinquency, criminal behavior, substance use,

and pregnancy in adolescence and young adulthood.

173

Fortunately, cognitive and behavioral developmental skills are malleable and can be built through high-quality

interventions, staed by engaged and skilled personnel who are supported by practice-based professional

development and provided in a safe setting with small child-to-adult ratios.

174

Research consistently ﬁnds that

strategic investments in children’s development can yield beneﬁts for children and families.

175

However, the ability

to intervene early and eectively with at-risk children before problems compound begins with testing to ascertain

the extent of the exposure and then, through neuropsychological and developmental assessments, to determine

if developmental delay or cognitive or functional deﬁcits have resulted.

Blood lead testing

A necessary precursor to getting children the interventions and care they need is determining the level of lead

in their bodies. Some state health departments encourage health care providers to use risk factor screening

questionnaires to identify children at a high risk of lead exposure based on housing and other conditions, but

one study found that many of these questionnaires do a poor job of predicting risk.

176

Providers often incorrectly

assume that if patients do not live in a poor neighborhood or a community of color then they are not at risk, and

clinicians are not always up to date on the latest CDC guidelines regarding harmful levels of lead in blood. For

example, some providers and laboratories still tell parents that blood lead test results are normal if levels are

below 10 μg/dL. Further, low blood lead levels can have lasting eects without any visible symptoms. For all of

these reasons, a blood test is the preferred way to determine if a child has been exposed to lead.

The CMS requires states to comply with the Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Testing (EPSDT) program,

a comprehensive preventive child health initiative that emphasizes early assessment of children’s health care

needs and requires that all children receiving Medicaid be tested for various health indicators, including receiving

a blood lead test, at 12 and 24 months of age, unless the state has been granted a waiver by the CMS. However,

despite these and other long-standing requirements, about 40 percent of Medicaid-enrolled children do not

receive tests.

177

State guidelines for children not covered by Medicaid range from universal testing to screening only high-risk

children.

178

Ten states plus the District of Columbia require testing of all children, eight mandate targeted testing,

and the rest either provide only recommendations or have no policy. Most of the states with universal testing

require it at ages 1 and 2 or at 3 years of age if no previous test was conducted, but even in these states, not all

children actually receive tests.

179

The CDC’s 2009 report on testing of Medicaid-eligible children recommends oering blood lead testing at sites

operated by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to increase the

percentage of children tested.

180

The report notes that collaboration with WIC has been eective for blood lead

testing of Native American children. Additionally, the CDC created lead poisoning prevention recommendations

for newly arrived refugee children, including testing within 90 days of entry to the U.S. for children ages 6 months

to 16 years, and six months after resettlement for children 6 years of age and younger.

181

Under EPSDT, Medicaid agencies are also required to cover diagnostic services and treatment to correct and

ameliorate defects, physical and mental illnesses, and other conditions for individuals up to age 21. To qualify for

coverage, school-based health programs must be primarily medical rather than educational in nature, medically

necessary for the child, and delivered by a qualiﬁed Medicaid provider to income-eligible families. Services can

include diagnosis and treatment of acute uncomplicated problems, monitoring and treatment of chronic medical

conditions, and provision of medical services to children with disabilities that are required by the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). States and schools have ﬂexibility in how they implement these services.

(See Special Education below.)

Academic and behavioral interventions

Many lead-poisoned children’s developmental and learning deﬁcits are similar to those in children aected by

trauma and poverty. Within that broader population of at-risk children, certain high-quality, evidence-based

programs have demonstrated positive eects, for example on executive functioning.

182

In fact, research studies

consistently ﬁnd that investments in high-quality child development interventions reap positive beneﬁts for

children, families, and society.

183

Although no formal evaluations have measured the eectiveness of academic

and behavioral interventions for children with a history of lead exposure, robust evidence nevertheless shows that

various childhood interventions reduce deﬁcits in the very same skills and behaviors most commonly aected by

lead exposure through injuries it causes to the brain. Further, although no high-quality programs were designed or

implemented speciﬁcally for children exposed to lead, they generally focus on children at similar developmental

risks from trauma, poverty, stress, and other adverse childhood experiences and therefore may provide beneﬁts

for children aected by lead.

One such intervention is the federal Head Start and Early Head Start program for which the Administration

for Children and Families provides grants to states and communities to deliver high-quality early learning

opportunities to low-income infants, toddlers, and young children. Recipients then use the funding to provide

services for children from low-income families. Given the federal support and focus on high-risk populations,

Head Start could be a valuable entry point for reaching children who have been exposed to lead and could have

positive impacts on their academic and behavioral outcomes and executive functioning.

Early Head Start provides a range of comprehensive services for parents, including family support and coaching

oered in and outside the home. Such parent-focused interventions can build on the positive impacts of

early childhood education programs if they include regular, voluntary in-home family support and coaching—

commonly known as home visiting—to provide parents with opportunities to practice responsive interactions and

other activities that oer their children age-appropriate encouragement. A recent analysis of parent education

programs found that combining monthly in-home family support and coaching visits with parent education

resulted in the highest improvements in children’s cognitive and pre-academic skills, such as vocabulary

development, task persistence, reading, and counting.

184

If regularly provided, intensive, and focused on improving

the quality of interactions with young children, these programs might also represent a promising intervention for

lead-exposed children.

Still further, high-quality targeted academic and behavioral school-based, community-based, and caregiver and

parent training programs can provide children in elementary and middle school with opportunities and tools to

manage anger, aggression, and negative thoughts, which in turn can improve social and academic performance.

Some programs rely on cognitive therapy approaches, a type of talk therapy that builds awareness of negative

thinking and helps manage stress.

185

Behavioral interventions can engage parents to promote healthy emotional

management, improve attention, and reduce impulsiveness through meditation and computer trainings.

Rigorous research has demonstrated the positive eects of many high-quality early and middle childhood

interventions for children with some of the same deﬁcits faced by lead-exposed children. For example:

• Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) connects young, low-income, ﬁrst-time expectant mothers with a public

health nurse, who meets with the woman in her home, starting during pregnancy and continuing until the baby

turns 2. The model has been shown to have a 54 percent return to the federal government on its investment,

lower enrollment in Medicaid, a 9 percent reduction in Medicaid costs, a decrease in emergency room visits

for poisonings, and fewer behavior and intellectual problems among children. A 2012 study found long-term

beneﬁts of the program of almost $23,000 per participant.

186

At age 12, children who had received nurse visits

in early childhood out-performed their counterparts on standardized reading and math tests and were 70

percent less likely than children who did not participate to have used harmful substances, including cigarettes

and alcohol.

187

By age 15, participating children were half as likely to have behavioral problems and had half as

many arrests as those without visits.

188

• The Incredible Years training program consists of a range of activities that promote positive parenting

and teaching practices, interpersonal skills, academic competence, and general social skills and has been

shown, overall, to decrease harsh discipline practices, improve proactive parenting skills and the parent-child

relationship, enhance children’s academic and social competence, and decrease aggression.

189

In a randomized

controlled trial, researchers found reductions in antisocial behavior of up to 59 percent among children who

received training or whose parents or teachers were trained.

190

• Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) fosters emotional and social competencies through the

development and strengthening of skills in emotional literacy, positive peer relations, and problem solving and

was found in an evaluation involving children in grades one to three to improve cognitive concentration and

reduce aggressive and antisocial behavior.

191

PATHS has also been found to improve academic skills. In a 2015

randomized evaluation of children from 24 elementary schools, those who participated in PATHS were 1.7 and

1.6 times more likely to attain proﬁciency in reading and math, respectively.

192

• Steps to Respect is a school-based bullying-prevention program that focuses on prosocial beliefs and social-

emotional learning. Students participate in a 12- to 14-week-long curriculum that uses literature-based

lessons, and parents receive information and updates about the program. Participating students demonstrated

fewer antisocial characteristics, such as aggression and bossiness, and by the end of the intervention, schools

saw a nearly 25 percent reduction in bullying behavior.

193

Only rigorously tested, culturally competent high-quality interventions have the potential to deliver beneﬁts for

any children, including those exposed to lead. Policymakers and other stakeholders will need to investigate the

options with the needs of their communities in mind. The programs described above are illustrative of the many

high-quality interventions available. The resources below provide detailed descriptions of and information on

supporting research and evidence for these and many other interventions and can provide a starting point for

policymakers’ exploratory eorts:

• Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development, available at http://www.blueprintsprograms.com.

• Child Trends—What Works, available at https://www.childtrends.org/what-works.

• Home Visiting Evidence of Eectiveness, available at https://homvee.acf.hhs.gov.

• The Institute of Education Sciences’ What Works Clearinghouse, available at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/WWC.

• The National Institute of Justice’s Crime Solutions, available at https://www.crimesolutions.gov/default.aspx.

• Pew-MacArthur Results First Clearinghouse Database, available at http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/

data-visualizations/2015/results-ﬁrst-clearinghouse-database.

Special education

The deﬁcits associated with lead often do not become apparent until a child is older, such as in ﬁrst grade when

children begin to acquire basic academic skills, and in sixth or seventh grade when executive functions such as

planning and organization skills are needed. For this reason, it is best not to wait until the eects of lead exposure

become a problem for the child, but rather begin intervention as early as possible once a child is identiﬁed as

having an elevated blood lead level.

The IDEA ensures that all children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education. Part C of the

law serves infants and toddlers through age 2 with developmental delays or physical or mental conditions likely

to result in delays. Part B provides grants to states to partially fund special education and related services for

children and youth ages 3-21. Only eight states specify lead exposure as a condition that qualiﬁes for IDEA,

12 others mention blood lead levels ranging from more than 10 to over 45 μg/dL as a criterion for eligibility, and

13 reference “toxic” exposures generally.

194

IDEA requires states to identify children with disabilities, determine

their eligibility, and make referrals to services via the comprehensive Child Find system.

195

Policy in Action: Serving Children With a History of Lead Exposure

Connecticut has a unique approach to providing educational interventions for lead-exposed

children. Under the Child Find program, the State Department of Education collaborates with

local school districts and the Connecticut Parent Advocacy Center to identify children with

a history of lead exposure or blood lead levels of 5 μg/dL or above, then notify the parent,

refer the family to medical providers and housing assistance, and obtain a health history from

the school nurse.

Based on a subsequent assessment, children then receive one of three

interventions:

• If the child has no noted or suspected developmental delays or other risk factors, the school team

develops a monitoring plan with annual review and refers the family to Head Start or a school

readiness or other enrichment program.

†

• If the child has a suspected or actual developmental delay or disability, the team determines

IDEA eligibility, conducts an evaluation, develops an individualized education program

identifying necessary services and supports, and places the child in district pre-kindergarten

or another enrichment program. For children with disabilities who do not qualify for IDEA,

the team completes evaluations as appropriate and investigates eligibility under Section 504

of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires schools to meet the needs of such

children.

‡

• If the child has other risk factors (e.g., poor housing condition, anemia, lack of enrichment) but no

noted or suspected delay, the team still assesses for services under Section 504 and, if the

child is eligible, develops an accommodation and monitoring plan and considers placement

in district or other enrichment programs in accordance with the federal provision. If the child

is not eligible, the team proceeds with an annual monitoring plan and referral to Head Start,

school readiness, or other enrichment programs. If the child does not qualify for Section 504,

the team proceeds with an annual monitoring plan and referral to Head Start or a school

readiness or other enrichment program.

* Connecticut Parent Advocacy Center, “Child Find,” accessed March 9, 2017, http://www.cpacinc.org/hot-topics/

child-ﬁnd; U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Educational Interventions for Children Aected

by Lead” (Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015), https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/

publications/educational_interventions_children_aected_by_lead.pdf.

† U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Educational Interventions for Children Aected by Lead.”

‡ Ibid.

All states participate in IDEA, but state and local implementation and quality varies, resulting in some

dierences in policies, services, processes, and outcomes. One promising, but not yet rigorously evaluated,

strategy to accomplish this is Universal Design for Learning, an educational framework based on scientiﬁc

insight for improving teaching and learning for all students.

Nutrition

Nutritional measures have not yet been proven to have a clinically important impact on the blood lead levels

of children who have already been exposed.

196

However, nutritional interventions can support children’s

development in areas that lead exposure is known to cause impairment—particularly reading, math, and social-

emotional skills—and so may serve as a buer against lead’s deleterious eects. Multiple studies, including

randomized control trials, have found that healthy diets high in iron may improve children’s developmental

outcomes, including motor control, social interaction, and IQ later in life.

197

In a recent experiment in North Carolina, children with high blood lead levels received various health- and

nutrition-related services, such as WIC, and their parents were given advice about reducing lead in the home.

198

Children in the treated group had improved educational achievement and reduced adolescent antisocial behavior,

compared with the control group, which included children who did not have high blood lead levels and did not

receive interventions. The researchers observed and controlled for some dierences between the two groups,

such as children in the control group had more days absent from school and were suspended more than the

intervention group.

The USDA’s food programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, previously known as

food stamps) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), must meet strong nutrition standards, including

providing meals that are high in iron, calcium, and other vital nutrients, but the research team did not ﬁnd any

studies of the impact of these programs on children with elevated blood lead levels.

199

A few small studies,

however, have explored how these programs aect outcomes such as reading, math, and social-emotional

skills, which are areas that lead exposure tends to undermine. Speciﬁcally, these analyses found slight but not

statistically signiﬁcant increases in reading and math scores and social-emotional outcomes among children

participating in WIC, while another study identiﬁed a positive relationship between participation in SNAP and

reading and math scores among elementary grade girls.

200

Policy in Action: Healthy Diets for Better Long-Term Outcomes

Michigan State University (MSU) and Hurley Children’s Hospital created the Pediatric Public

Health Initiative in January 2016 in response to Flint’s lead crisis. As part of the initiative,

university and hospital sta provide nutrition education.

Additionally, the Fair Food Network,

an organization committed to connecting families with healthy food, expanded its “Double-Up

Food Bucks” program to increase participants’ access to fruits and vegetables. This initiative

matches the value of federal food assistance that enrollees spend on produce at participating

farmers markets and grocery stores. For example, residents who buy $10 worth of fruit and

vegetables get another $10 in produce. Similarly, WIC beneﬁciaries can receive coupons to buy

locally grown fruit and vegetables through a program called WIC Project Fresh.

†

* Michigan State University, “About MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative,” accessed Jan.

25, 2017, http://humanmedicine.msu.edu/pphi/About.htm.

† Michigan State University, “Fight Lead With Nutrition,” accessed Feb. 18, 2017, http://msue.anr.msu.edu/uploads/

resources/pdfs/MSUE_Fight_Lead_With_Nutrition_WEB-4-22-16.pdf.

Stakeholder input

Parents of children with a history of exposure or who may be at risk strongly and consistently urged universal

blood lead testing.

201

Further, they advocated for blood tests to start early (e.g., 9 months) and be conducted

often, with some recommending annual tests. Parents of lead-exposed children thought having this information

sooner could have enabled them to seek appropriate follow-up treatment.

Some focus group participants explained that their children had blood lead tests as part of regular pediatric

checkups, but others said they had to ask their pediatricians for the tests. Participants in Flint noted that parents

without health insurance, especially immigrant families, might not have access to blood tests. Many participants

supported universal testing, though some said that positive tests set o a chain of negative events, including

visits from the health department, home inspections, doctor appointments, and requirements to abate or

remediate lead. Some participants reported receiving threats that Child Protective Services would remove their

children if they did not comply with health department requirements to remediate hazards.

Community members and parents emphasized the importance of prevention and improved awareness among

adult caregivers before children come into contact with lead, but many also commended the early interventions

their children received. Recommendations to improve these programs included professional development for

teachers, specialized curricula, and extension of certain services to older children.

Participants recommended employing community health and social workers to implement parent-focused

interventions and reinforced the need for neuropsychological assessments to ensure that interventions address

each child’s speciﬁc challenges. Other concerns included the cost of assessments and insurance coverage of

related expenses.

A small number of focus group participants mentioned healthy, nutritious food as a way to help protect children

from the eects of lead exposure. In Baltimore, a parent attributed her son’s decreasing lead levels to the diet

high in vegetables and fruits he received at school. Other participants in the same group referred to a connection

between diets rich in iron and low blood lead levels. In Chicago, a focus group participant explained that the

farm-to-school program described earlier in this report expanded to accept SNAP beneﬁts, which allowed more

children to take advantage of the health beneﬁts of fresh fruits and vegetables. In Indiana, the NAACP started

produce giveaways at two churches.

Experts from the national listening sessions and the advisory committee recommended including nutrition as

a policy to combat the eects of lead exposure. Listening session participants also considered whether special

education eligibility regulations should cite speciﬁc blood lead levels and inquired whether the Health Insurance

Portability and Accountability Act prohibits health care providers and health agencies from disclosing children’s

blood lead levels to schools; it does not in most cases.

202

Proposed solution

Although all children beneﬁt from healthy diets, nutritional interventions cannot completely prevent the harms

associated with lead exposure.

203

However, based on the literature, expanding the services and outreach provided

by programs such as WIC, SNAP, Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and the NSLP helps improve

children’s academic and social outcomes.

Additionally, a vast and robust body of literature demonstrates positive outcomes for children with deﬁcits similar

to those that result from lead exposure who receive high-quality educational interventions. Experts in pediatrics

and project advisers agreed that providing access to developmental assessments and culturally appropriate

evidence-based programs is critical to responding to lead poisoning in children. Parents of lead-poisoned children

who participated in focus groups universally agreed that their children beneﬁted from educational supports.

Giving children with elevated blood lead the best opportunity for success begins with ensuring that clinicians

follow blood lead testing guidelines; recommendations to improve blood lead testing for high-risk children are

included later in this report. Once a child is identiﬁed as having elevated levels of lead in his or her blood, any

ongoing source of exposure must be removed and neuropsychological assessments should be conducted to

identify the speciﬁc parts of the brain that have been aected. From there, caregivers need help navigating the

complicated system of potential educational and care interventions. Child Find is one program that can help

parents identify and enroll their children in appropriate programs. These are the ideal steps for children who

have been exposed to lead, but they are not in place in most communities in the U.S.

In the absence of this protocol, children with a history of elevated blood lead levels should be oered entry

into early and middle childhood development programs that are available in their communities. To quantify the

potential of doing so, the study team modeled the beneﬁts of providing high-quality, culturally appropriate early

and middle childhood education and care programs for children known to have been exposed to lead.

Assumptions

• The team modeled the eect of high-quality interventions on later-life outcomes for children with blood lead

levels above 2 μg/dL. This blood lead level was selected because too few children in NHANES had blood lead

levels above other potential cut-points such as 3.5 or 5 μg/dl, which would lead to instability in the modeling,

and because, given that any lead in blood is harmful, it is the lowest practical level for which remediation

might be oered.

• The team drew eect sizes from a review of experimental evaluations and meta-analyses of programs

for children in early and middle childhood and then took the median eect size across the studies for

each outcome.

• Child Trends identiﬁed evidence-based interventions and determined their eect sizes for children with other

disadvantages, such as poverty and trauma. The relevant outcomes in the SGM include improved reading

and math scores and reduced antisocial behavior and hyperactivity, which are all areas of potential deﬁcit in

lead-exposed children. To be included, interventions must have been rigorously evaluated, served children

in early or middle childhood, and reported on one or more of the outcome categories in the SGM: academic,

behavioral, or both. Assuming comparable beneﬁts for children with lead-related deﬁcits, those eect sizes

were used to predict impacts on children’s educational attainment, rates of teen parenthood and criminal

convictions, and family income later in life.

Findings

The Social Genome Model found possible beneﬁts of high-quality early and middle education programs

for children with blood lead levels above 2 μg/dL (see Table 7), compared with having no such intervention,

including:

• Increases of roughly 4 and 3 percentage points, respectively, in the likelihood of earning a high school diploma

and a four-year college degree. Among the 2018 birth cohort, this would result in more than 13,000 additional

high school graduates.

• Decreases of 1.1 and 1.7 percentage points, respectively, in the likelihood of becoming a teen parent or being

convicted of a crime. This translates into 4,300 fewer teen parents and 6,200 fewer convictions among the

2018 birth cohort alone.

• Increased estimated lifetime family earnings of:

• $33,000 for children who receive only early interventions.

• $69,000 for children enrolled only in middle childhood interventions.

• $102,000 for children who receive both.

Table 7

Providing Both Early and Middle Childhood Interventions Could

Yield the Greatest Beneﬁts

Eects on education, crime, and income

Notes: Analysis is based on the SGM’s sample of about 8,000 children drawn from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth dataset. To arrive at the number of children positively aected, the research team applied the percentage point dierences between

baseline conditions and total prevention to the roughly 365,000 children in the 2018 birth cohort whose blood lead levels would probably

exceed 2 μg/dL.

Source: Social Genome Model analysis by Child Trends and the Urban Institute

Outcome Baseline

Early childhood

programs

Middle childhood

programs

Both

With

intervention

Children

aected

With

intervention

Children

aected

With

intervention

Children

aected

At age 19

Average high school GPA 2.74 2.77 N/A 2.79 N/A 2.82 N/A

Percentage

of children

Earn a high

school diploma

74.4% 75.6% 4,100 76.9% 9,200 78.0% 13,300

Become a teen

parent

20.1% 19.9% 900 19.2% 3,500 19.0% 4,300

Be convicted of

a crime

22.0% 21.4% 2,500 21.0% 3,700 20.3% 6,200

At age 29

Earn a 4-year college degree 17.0% 18.1% 3,800 18.9% 6,800 19.9% 10,700

Income (in 2015 constant dollars)

Mean family at age 40 $62,300 $65,500 N/A $68,800 N /A $72,000 N /A

Estimated lifetime family $753,500 $786,700 N/A $822,000 N/A $855,300 N/A

Potential challenges

Dierences in guidelines for and implementation of blood lead testing and parents’ concerns about safety and

cost may pose barriers to identifying children exposed to lead. Requiring universal testing in communities at

high risk would push local clinicians to recognize the urgency of blood lead tests and ensure that lead-exposed

children receive needed follow-up services. Increasing environmental testing and public disclosure of results

could help parents make more informed choices about having their children tested.

The lack of studies investigating the eectiveness of educational interventions for children with a history of

elevated blood lead levels may present an obstacle to increasing availability of these programs. The unique

biological mechanisms by which lead contributes to behavior and attention deﬁcits in children may mean that

interventions that support non-exposed children with similar deﬁcits will not yield comparable beneﬁts for

lead-exposed children. More research is needed to determine which speciﬁc types of interventions, if any, could

eectively help to mitigate the various impacts of lead on children’s brains.

Further, the cost of neuropsychological and developmental assessments may be a barrier to children being

evaluated and receiving needed services. States and the CMS could improve access by providing adequate

reimbursement for comprehensive follow-up services for children aected by lead, such as inspection and

reduction of hazards, family support and coaching programs, and remediation and developmental assessments.

In addition, school systems may not be in compliance with legal requirements to provide services such as special

education to children with a history of elevated blood lead levels because they have not allocated enough funding

or for other reasons. Without additional ﬁnancial resources to increase access for these children, schools may

shift funding from one child in need to another. Similarly, schools and districts also may not have the capacity for

needed training and stang, and programs that require complete ﬁdelity to a speciﬁc model may not be ﬂexible

enough to adapt to local circumstances.

Finally, stakeholders worried about stigma associated with labeling children as having a disability, so care

would need to be taken to address the potential unintended harms of increasing enrollment in these programs.

Speciﬁcally, trauma-informed care, an approach now being used in schools that involves understanding,

recognizing, and responding to the eects of trauma, could be a useful model for lead-exposed children to

minimize stigma and enhance understanding among providers, caregivers, and children. To address stakeholders’

concerns about lack of support after children age out of programs, mental health and other services should

be made available to young people over the age of 18 with a history of childhood exposure to help reduce

interactions with the criminal justice system, diculties with job performance, and risky behaviors.

Recommendations

Children poisoned by lead may suer from impaired brain development and behavior problems, making them

more likely to struggle and drop out of school, get into trouble with the law, and underperform in the workplace.

It is not possible to quantify the emotional and psychological trauma these children and their families experience.

Eliminating lead exposure would avoid health and ﬁnancial harms to families and future generations and could

yield $84 billion in discounted future beneﬁts per birth cohort. The federal government would realize about

$19 billion, and states would gain approximately $10 billion, in the form of increased tax collections and lower

health care, education, and safety net expenditures for the children born in 2018 alone. In the absence of lead,

these children will have higher GPAs, a better chance of earning their high school diplomas and of graduating

from college, and they will be less likely to become teen parents or be convicted of a crime. Among children for

whom prevention eorts have come too late, comprehensive academic and behavioral interventions may help

overcome the challenges they will encounter and could help prevent the toxic eects of lead from diminishing

their lifelong health and potential for achievement.

Federal, state, and local organizations should coordinate to eectively align and target resources. In light

of the overwhelming evidence about the eects of lead at very low levels and the urgency of sending our

next generation of children to school ready and able to learn, the team developed the following 10 policy

recommendations and implementation tactics for various sources of lead exposure, such as housing and water.

At the national level, the success of these strategies depends on a comprehensive approach, rather than focusing

discretely on individual sources of lead, and demands collaboration across agencies and levels of government

to achieve full implementation within the next 36 months. At the state and local levels, data on community risk

factors can inform prioritization of the recommendations.

Priority sources

Based on the quantitative and qualitative ﬁndings the study team recommends prioritizing policies that address

sources of lead with which children are most likely to come into contact and in the places that they spend most

of their time.

Reduce lead in drinking water in homes built before 1986 and other places children frequent

• By 2019, the EPA and states should require water utilities to submit plans for full lead service line replacement

across their systems, including speciﬁc eorts by utilities to reduce the ﬁnancial burden on low-income

customers. The plans should include strategies for ensuring customer safety following LSL replacement, such

as ﬂushing, monitoring, and provision of water ﬁlters. For example, Lansing, Michigan; St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Madison, Wisconsin, have nearly completed replacement of their LSLs. (See Policy in Action on Page 36.)

• State or local governments should require all properties to be inspected for drinking water lead risks before

sale or lease.

• The EPA should develop an action level for lead in a home’s drinking water. Health Canada’s proposed

maximum allowable concentration of 5 ppb could serve as an interim level with the goal of getting to

1 ppb over time.

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• The EPA should increase the number of household drinking water taps that are tested for lead under its Lead

and Copper Rule requirements.

• HUD and the EPA should require drinking water sampling as part of lead risk assessment procedures.

• The EPA and HUD should coordinate funding for addressing lead in low-income housing so it includes the

replacement of LSLs and plumbing as well as removal of paint hazards.

• Municipalities should require developers to conduct full LSL replacement when a structure is sold, demolished,

or rebuilt. Woonsocket, Rhode Island, has pursued this policy. (See Policy in Action on Page 29.)

• The EPA and states should require utilities to take immediate protective steps when partial LSL replacements

occur, including optimized corrosion control, ﬂushing, monitoring, sampling, and clear and timely

communication to aected residents.

• The EPA should provide funding to train water system personnel to improve the consistency and eectiveness

of corrosion control across systems of dierent sizes and water chemistries.

• State Medicaid agencies should seek approval from the CMS to use CHIP funding for testing and remediation

of lead in water in children’s homes and child care facilities. (See Policy in Action on Page 30.)

• The USDA should provide supplemental beneﬁts for SNAP and WIC participants whose home tap water

contains harmful levels of lead to purchase bottled water.

• The USDA should work with the EPA to deﬁne water quality for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)

and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).

• For schools and child care sites participating in NSLP and CACFP, respectively, the USDA should establish

a fund for testing and remediation costs. Such a program could be modeled after the NSLP Equipment

Assistance Grants program.

• The USDA should ensure that schools and child care facilities meet water quality standards through its NSLP

Administrative Reviews and CACFP Monitoring.

• Schools and licensed child care facilities should implement the EPA’s 3Ts recommendation to test water

for lead.

• States should require that schools and licensed child care providers test for lead in drinking water and release

the results publicly. California, New York, and Rhode Island already require testing at the tap in these facilities.

(See Policy in Action on Page 27.)

• To increase the number of water samples drawn from places where vulnerable children spend time, the

EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule should require utilities to collect and test water from schools and licensed child

care facilities in their service districts.

Remove lead paint hazards from low-income housing built before 1960 and other places children

spend time

• HUD should increase funding for replacement of windows coated with lead paint, ﬁx peeling paint, clean up

contaminated dust, and treat toxic soil outside homes of low-income families built before 1960, while ensuring

that the homes remain aordable.

• The U.S. Department of Energy and states should encourage the replacement of lead-painted windows with

new energy-ecient ones by including the beneﬁts of preventing lead exposure and government dollars spent

in the savings-to-investment ratio used to determine the cost eectiveness of energy upgrades.

• State and local governments should make lead paint hazard control ﬁnancially accessible for property owners

by oering low-interest loans, tax credits and other incentives.

• States or localities should require housing inspections and remediation of lead paint hazards, including peeling

or chipped paint and contaminated soil and dust, before a home is sold, rented, or ﬁnanced. Agencies should

seek to reduce costs for compliant rental property owners by, for example, requiring recertiﬁcation only at

intervals that are demonstrated to protect health. Rental registries, such as those in Maryland and Rhode

Island, and systematic code enforcement, as in Rochester, New York, demonstrate various ways this can be

accomplished. (See Policy in Action on Page 40.)

• States and localities should prevent displacement of tenants in homes with lead hazards by freezing any

eviction proceeding initiated without just cause and within six months of a ﬁnding of a high blood lead level

or lead hazard in the home and should prohibit landlords from re-renting units that poisoned a child or where

lead has been found until hazards are addressed.

• States should mandate inspections of all apartments in buildings where one unit is found with hazards to

prevent other children from coming into contact with lead paint hazards. New York state’s notice and demand

authority provides a model for this approach. (See Policy in Action on Page 42.)

• State Medicaid agencies should pay for state and local health department testing of homes in high-risk

neighborhoods for environmental hazards, and states should establish additional permanent sources of

funding, other than Medicaid, for such investigations when aected children do not qualify for other state

or federal funds.

• The CMS and Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant Program should provide training to

enable home health care workers and other home-based aides to identify potential lead hazards in homes

with children.

• The EPA should update its standards for lead dust, soil, and paint based on evidence, and states should

adopt standards for lead in dust and on porches that are comparable to those covering HUD lead hazard

control grantees.

• The EPA and state and local governments should oer funding to schools and child care providers to support

lead paint hazard identiﬁcation and mitigation.

Increase enforcement of the EPA’s renovation, repair, and painting rule

• The EPA should develop and implement a strategy for ensuring compliance with its renovation, repair, and

painting rule with an emphasis on older homes with children and child care facilities.

• Local governments should require proof of appropriate EPA-compliant lead-remediation training before issuing

a permit for work that is likely to disturb paint in housing built before 1978 and more broadly disseminate

information about the rule’s requirements. Providence, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia and have

enacted such policies. (See Page 53.)

• The EPA should provide state and local agencies with funding to support compliance with the rule, including

educating businesses and consumers about the hazards of unsafe renovation and federal requirements.

• The EPA should require that contractors perform dust testing after completing renovation, repair, and painting

work to ensure that the home is safe for reoccupancy.

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration should protect construction and renovation workers and

their children by updating its standards for occupational lead exposure to reduce both on-the-job risks and the

likelihood of dust and other hazards transferring from the jobsite to workers’ homes.

Additional sources

Although the top policy priority should be addressing sources of lead with which children are most likely to come

into contact, achieving total prevention also requires focusing on other sources that contribute to the overall

amount of lead in the environment and may cause individual serious cases of lead poisoning but account for a

smaller proportion of lead in children’s blood overall.

Reduce lead in food and consumer products

• The federal government, through participation in the Codex committee, should encourage expedited reduction

of international limits on lead in foods, particularly those that young children and babies are likely to consume.

Where local surveillance data indicate that children are being exposed to lead from sources such as candy,

health remedies, or cosmetics, state and local agencies should target education and outreach to at-risk

neighborhoods; support cultural awareness among physicians; and increase investigation and enforcement

of small retailers.

Reduce air lead emissions

• The EPA should implement the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee’s recommendation to reduce

the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for lead to 0.02 μg /m

and prioritize regulation of concentrations

around lead smelting and battery recycling facilities.

• The FAA should eliminate lead from aviation gas and identify alternative formulas that can minimize the cost

to airport and plane operators, and the EPA should issue an endangerment ﬁnding that lead emissions from

aircraft threaten public health and promulgate emissions limits, which would then require the FAA to adopt

regulations to ensure compliance with those standards.

• State and local governments should impose fees on airports serving piston engine aircraft that rely on leaded

gas and use the revenue to ﬁnance the cleanup of soil in surrounding residential neighborhoods, parks, and

school districts. California levies a fee on paint and petroleum. (See Policy in Action on Page 62.)

Clean up contaminated soil

• Congress should provide adequate funding for Superfund cleanup at lead-contaminated sites.

• The EPA and states should investigate lead levels in neighborhoods near former lead smelter sites and other

industrial and hazardous waste facilities and convey the information resulting from those studies in a culturally

competent manner and in partnership with organizations trusted by local communities.

• The EPA and HUD should coordinate Superfund eorts and lead hazard control activities so that when a

residence is treated for contaminated soil, the interior and exterior of homes are also made lead-safe. The

Omaha Superfund site provides an example of this approach. (See Policy in Action on Page 60.)

• State agencies should develop and fund a coordinated cleanup eort for contaminated neighborhoods.

• The EPA should adopt a health-based standard for lead in dust and soil and eliminate the distinction between

areas where children do and do not play in the soil.

Poisoning response

Prevention is the most critical and ﬁrst approach to addressing childhood lead exposure, but those eorts have

come too late for many children. Policymakers should take concrete steps to ensure that children with elevated

blood lead levels are identiﬁed and receive the supportive services they need to minimize negative outcomes and

succeed later in life. Although no studies have speciﬁcally assessed the eect of education and care interventions

among children exposed to lead, high-quality programs have shown beneﬁts for children at similar developmental

risk and might improve certain cognitive and behavioral outcomes among lead-exposed children.

Improve blood lead testing among children at high risk of exposure and ﬁnd and remediate the sources

of their exposure

• The CDC should collaborate with the American Academy of Pediatrics and other professional

organizations, with input from concerned parents, to determine the factors that contribute to the persistent

lack of appropriate testing of high-risk children and should develop and implement strategies to address

identiﬁed barriers.

• HHS and the CDC should provide funding to upgrade and improve blood lead surveillance at the state and

local levels and to ensure that health agencies have the necessary resources to provide follow-up care for

children with elevated blood lead, including for ﬁnding the sources of exposures and connecting families to

remediation services and developmental and neuropsychological assessments.

• The CMS should work with state Medicaid agencies to increase the number of states that include blood lead

testing of Medicaid-enrolled children as one of its performance measures and should make publicly available

its annual estimates of Medicaid-enrolled children tested for lead by age 2, broken out by state and health

provider.

• State and local health departments should oer blood lead testing at clinics and schools and through mobile

health units to improve access for at-risk families; these sites can use simple, portable devices to check

blood lead levels at the point of care.

205

The results from blood lead tests should be shared with children’s

pediatricians and state agencies responsible for surveillance.

• The USDA should develop mechanisms to reimburse blood lead testing conducted at WIC sites in concert

with hemoglobin testing.

• State Medicaid agencies should only allow health care providers to receive an increased reimbursement

rate for Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment services if required blood lead testing is

also conducted.

• State Medicaid agencies should use CHIP funding to increase inspections of the homes of lead-exposed

children and to remediate identiﬁed paint, dust, soil, and water hazards.

Ensure access to developmental and neuropsychological assessments and appropriate high-quality

programs for lead-exposed children

• The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education and state and local health and education

agencies should invest in high-quality early and middle childhood education programs for children with a

history of elevated blood lead levels.

• State education departments, through their Child Find programs, should collaborate with local health

departments to identify children with elevated blood lead levels and ensure that they receive needed supports

and services. Connecticut provides a model approach. (See Policy in Action on Page 73.)

• The CMS should provide adequate reimbursement for comprehensive follow-up services for children aected

by lead, including lead hazard remediation and developmental and neuropsychological assessments.

• State education agencies should modify their IDEA Part C programs so neurocognitive and developmental

deﬁcits of lead exposure qualify for services and should presume that children with elevated blood lead levels

are eligible for services. States also should modify IDEA Part B programs to help local education agencies

identify and provide interventions and accommodations for children aected by lead.

• The USDA should increase funding for programs such as WIC and SNAP to expand their ability to improve

children’s nutrition.

Data and research

Decades of research have documented the extent of lead exposure and its impacts on children, but as policy

actions have helped curb exposures, research has not kept pace. As a result, more study of the eectiveness of

interventions on today’s lower blood lead and exposure levels is needed. In addition, local data, which play an

important role in helping public health ocials and community organizations identify and target treatment and

response eorts, are often not readily available to the agencies and groups that need them.

Improve public access to local data

• The CDC should, in partnership with community-based organizations, local health agencies, and private

philanthropy, collect census tract level data on blood lead level results; the presence of leaded drinking water

pipes; and lead in the water, dust, paint, and soil of homes, schools, child care facilities, and other places

children spend time.

• The CDC should use gathered data to produce culturally competent and accessible community lead reports

and broadly disseminate them to health care providers, school administrators, and child care operators. New

York City’s Environment & Health Data Portal is a good example.

• States should require laboratories to electronically submit all blood lead test results to local and state health

departments within a week of the result so the information can be aggregated to assist with prevention and

response eorts.

• States should be required to report blood lead surveillance data to the CDC.

• States should, in partnership with local health agencies and their municipalities, make property-speciﬁc

information on leaded drinking water pipes and lead in water, dust, paint, and soil of homes, schools, child care

facilities, and other places where children spend time easily available to the public.

Fill gaps in research to better target state and local prevention and response eorts

• The federal government should support an integrated national survey of children’s blood lead levels and

multiple sources of exposure, including food, water, soil, paint, house dust, and consumer products.

• HUD and the EPA should design and implement a study of water from a representative sample of U.S. housing

to collect data that can be used to estimate how much lead dierent sections of the house plumbing system

add to water. Samples should be drawn over time during cold and warm weather, from dierent parts of

the service lines, and under varying corrosion control and water source conditions. The study design should

produce exposure estimates for susceptible populations such as formula-fed babies and expectant mothers.

• The EPA should develop and validate a standardized method for sampling water for homes, schools, and child

care facilities that can be implemented in the ﬁeld by environmental health professionals.

• The EPA should support an evaluation of the ecacy and eciency of water pipe liners and point-of-entry

water ﬁlters for prevention of lead leaching.

• The EPA should identify barriers to optimal corrosion control and methods to overcome them, including

widespread education of the public and water utilities.

• The EPA should develop ﬁeld tools to identify LSLs.

• The EPA should evaluate the eectiveness of dierent periods of ﬂushing in reducing dissolved and particulate

lead concentrations at household taps.

• HUD should research the eectiveness of various lead hazard control treatments in preventing blood lead

level increases.

• HUD and the EPA should undertake large-scale studies to test the eect of soil treatments over time to inform

cleanup programs.

• Federal, state, and local agencies and philanthropy should conduct small-area population-based studies to

identify relative risks among communities and subpopulations compared with the general population.

• The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences should fund studies on the impacts of prenatal and

early childhood lead on high-prevalence adult conditions such as hypertension, cardiac disease, and stroke.

• The EPA and other agencies should conduct studies to understand the primary sources of children’s lead

intake, including dietary, residential, and neighborhood sources among the general population and newly

arrived immigrant groups.

Conclusion

Childhood lead poisoning is preventable. U.S. children’s blood lead levels have declined dramatically over the

past few decades as a result of successful policy interventions that have removed large amounts of lead from the

environment and reduced potential sources of exposure. However, current crises in Flint, East Chicago, and other

communities across the country demonstrate the need for continued attention and action to protect children

from the harmful eects of lead.

Eliminating lead hazards from the places where children live, learn, and play will pay dividends in terms of social

and educational outcomes, and this analysis found that it also could yield $84 billion in long-term beneﬁts per

birth cohort. The federal government would reap about $19 billion, and states would gain approximately $10

billion for children born in 2018 alone. In the absence of lead, hundreds of thousands of children would be more

likely to realize their full potential thanks to higher GPAs, a better chance of earning high school diplomas and

graduating from college, and a reduced likelihood of becoming teen parents or being convicted of crimes.

Children spend dozens of hours each week in school and child care facilities, and dozens of case reports show

elevated levels of lead in the tap water of these facilities. Yet only scarce national data are available to indicate

how much lead children are coming into contact with in classrooms, from drinking fountains, or on playgrounds.

Uncovering and remediating the current sources of childhood exposure to lead both nationally and at the

community level, given the importance of contextual factors, should be a high priority.

And while prevention is the priority, addressing sources of lead does little to meet the needs of children once they

have been exposed. Children with a history of lead exposure can suer from impaired brain development and

behavior problems, making them more likely to struggle and drop out of school, get into trouble with the law, and

underperform in the workplace. And recent research conﬁrms that the eects of early childhood exposure to lead

persist, undermining cognition and socioeconomic status well into adulthood.

206

Giving these children the best opportunity for success begins with ensuring that clinicians follow blood lead

testing guidelines. Although no studies have evaluated the eectiveness of childhood interventions for lead-

exposed children, the absence of these data should not prevent children from receiving evidence-based, high-

quality childhood interventions shown to reduce the same cognitive and behavioral deﬁcits common among

lead-exposed children.

By taking steps to both address sources of lead aecting children and implement interventions to help lead-

exposed kids overcome the obstacles they face, federal, state, and local governments together with business

leaders can save billions of taxpayer dollars, generate thousands of good jobs, and improve the quality of life

for children and families across the nation.

Glossary

Abatement: Measures to permanently control (i.e., 20 years or more) lead-based paint or paint hazards,

including contaminated soil, dust, and deteriorated lead-based paint. EPA regulations exclude from the deﬁnition

“renovation, remodeling, landscaping or other activities, when such activities are not designed to permanently

eliminate lead-based paint hazards, but instead are designed to repair, restore, or remodel a given structure

or dwelling, even though these activities may incidentally result in a reduction or elimination of lead-based

paint hazards.”

207

Action level: Measurements used to express a health or physical hazard. They indicate the level of a harmful

or toxic substance or activity requiring medical surveillance, increased industrial hygiene monitoring, or

biological monitoring.

Blood lead test: Any draw of blood (capillary, venous, or unknown sample type) from a child that produces a

quantiﬁable lead level result and is analyzed by a certiﬁed facility or an approved portable device. A blood lead

test may be collected for use in screening, conﬁrmation, or follow-up.

Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program: A HUD program that issues grants to local government

and state entities to promote community development. Lead-based paint activities are an eligible expense under

the program.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA): A federal law enacted

in 1980, also known as Superfund, that granted federal agencies the authority to respond to public health and

environmental threats posed by the release of hazardous substances and levied a tax on the chemical and

petroleum industries to fund cleanup of waste sites. The funding provision has since expired, and the program is

now funded through regular appropriations.

Corrosion control: Treatment to minimize the dissolution of lead and/or copper in drinking water.

Cultural competency: The ability to address people’s diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors in public programs to

ensure they promote equity by meeting the particular needs of the population being served.

Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Testing (EPSDT) program: A comprehensive preventive child health

initiative that emphasizes early assessment of children’s health care needs and requires that all children receiving

Medicaid be tested for various health indicators, including blood lead at 12 and 24 months of age, unless the state

has been granted a waiver by the CMS.

Eect size: A quantitative measure of the magnitude of a dierence between or within groups over time. Eect

size is particularly useful in comparing the eects of interventions.

Elevated blood lead level (EBL): The CDC uses this term to refer to a blood lead level greater than or equal

to 5 μg/dL, which it deﬁnes as high and requiring public health intervention. (See also “reference value” and

“lead poisoning.”)

FIND: Filming Interactions to Nurture Development.

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA): An update to the Child Nutrition Act passed in 2010 to improve child

nutrition through oversight of the USDA’s child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program,

the School Breakfast Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children

(WIC), the Summer Food Service Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Integrated Exposure Uptake and Biokinetic model (IEUBK): Estimates lead in children using four interrelated

modules (exposure, uptake, biokinetic, and probability distribution) for children exposed to lead from water,

food, dust and soil, and through inhalation. The model allows the user to estimate, for a hypothetical child or

population of children at dierent ages, a distribution of blood lead concentrations based on information about

dierent sources of exposure to lead.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): A law that was ﬁrst enacted in 1975 to protect the rights of

children with disabilities to receive free appropriate education.

Interim controls: Set of measures to temporarily control lead-based paint hazards. Interim control methods

must be completed by qualiﬁed workers using safe work practices and followed by clearance testing. Follow-up

monitoring is needed.

Lead and Copper Rule (LCR): A regulation introduced by the EPA in 1991 to control lead and copper in the

drinking water distribution system. The EPA is currently considering new modiﬁcations to the rule, which has

been revised several times.

Lead-based paint: Deﬁned by HUD and the EPA as existing paint or other surface coatings that contain lead

equal to or exceeding 5,000 parts ppm. In 1978, the CPSC banned residential use of new lead-based paint that

contained greater than or equal to 600 ppm of lead, which was later reduced by Congress to 90 ppm.

Lead-based paint hazards: Any condition that causes exposure to lead from dust-lead hazards, soil-lead hazards,

or lead-based paint that is deteriorated or present in chewable surfaces, friction surfaces, or impact surfaces, and

that would result in adverse human health eects.

Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control Grant Program (LBPHC): A HUD-administered program that assists elements

of local government in establishing programs to address lead-based paint hazards in privately owned residences.

Lead exposure: In toxicology, exposure is deﬁned as any detectable level in blood; thus, lead exposure in this

document means any detectable level of lead in blood.

Lead poisoning: For the purposes of this report, a child is considered to have been poisoned by lead if he or she

has a single blood lead test (capillary or venous) at or above the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s

2012 reference value of 5 μg/dL even though some experts use the term to refer to a child who is at risk of a

blood lead concentration greater than 5 μg/dL.

Lead service line (LSL): The pipe that connects a home or other structure to the water main. Use of lead pipes in

all drinking water plumbing, including service lines, was banned by Congress eective 1986.

Microgram (μg): 1/1000th of a milligram (or 1 millionth of a gram). To put this unit into perspective, a penny

weighs 2 grams, so a microgram would be one of 2 million equal pieces of that penny.

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): A set of representative national surveys

that measures the health and nutrition of adults and children in the United States using interviews, physical

examinations, and blood specimens. NHANES is the main government data source for estimating mean blood

lead levels for the U.S. population and the number of children with high blood lead levels.

National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS): EPA rules for concentrations of various pollutants in outdoor

air intended to minimize human health risks.

National Priorities List (NPL): The EPA’s list of locations with hazardous wastes eligible for cleanup

under CERCLA.

Parts per billion (ppb): Equivalent to μg/kilogram by weight, a part per billion is equal to the value of one penny

compared with $10 million. This unit is used to measure lead in water.

Parts per million (ppm): Equivalent to μg/gram (10,000 ppm = 1 percent) by weight, this unit is used to measure

lead in paint and soil.

Quality-adjusted life year (QALY): A generic measure of disease burden, including the quality and the quantity of

life lived that is used in economic evaluations to assess the monetary value of medical interventions. One QALY is

equal to one year of perfect health.

Reference value/level: A value used to identify children with blood lead levels that indicate an elevated source of

exposure in their environment. The value is based on the 97.5th percentile of blood lead concentrations from the

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In 2011 this value was 5 μg/dL, and the CDC recommended

implementing interventions for individual children at this or higher blood lead concentrations. The CDC has not

made a recommendation for blood lead levels at the 2014 reference value of 3.5 μg/dL. The reference value is

calculated every four years based on the two latest years of NHANES data.

Risk assessment: A comprehensive evaluation, conducted by a certiﬁed assessor, to identify lead-based paint

hazards using paint testing, dust and soil sampling, and visual examination, and to recommend appropriate

reduction methods.

Savings to investment ratio (SIR): A measure that expresses the ratio of savings to costs.

Smelter: An industrial facility that extracts metals from ore (usually mixed with purifying and/or heat-generating

substances such as limestone and coke) at high temperature in an enclosed furnace. The process results in lighter

ore components (impurities called slag or tailing) rising to the top and ﬂoating on the molten metal.

Social Genome Model (SGM): A quantitative tool that combines two national longitudinal datasets to simulate

the eects of childhood interventions on outcomes at ﬁve life stages, from birth to age 40.

Soil remediation: The puriﬁcation, covering, or removal of contaminated soil.

Value of Prevention (VP) Tool: A quantitative modeling system that synthesizes data from literature and national

datasets to characterize the ﬁnancial and health impacts of investment in prevention from the perspectives of

dierent stakeholders.

Appendix: Methodology

Study methods included policy screening, literature review, case studies, interviews, national listening sessions,

focus groups, and quantitative modeling. (See Table A.1.) The models required several inputs, including the

number of children likely to be aected by a proposed policy, their baseline blood lead levels, and the expected

change in those levels as a result of each policy intervention.

To determine the number of children aected by a policy, the researchers sought information about the scope of

sources of exposure. For example, to determine the eect of replacing lead service lines, researchers needed to

know how many children live in homes with those lines, the level of lead in the water of their homes, their current

blood lead levels, and what the evidence suggests would happen to their blood lead levels with the replacement

of the lead lines. In the case of policy proposals for which those data were lacking, the team did not attempt

quantitative modeling and instead relied on qualitative research. Similarly, the team conducted cost-beneﬁt

analyses only for policy solutions for which cost information was available. Details of the various methods are

included below.

Method Purpose Source

Policy screening

• Narrow the list of policies to be included in the

assessment

Literature review

• Identify potential policy interventions

• Document the relationship between blood lead

levels and parameters in the quantitative models

including IQ, earnings, and math and reading

scores

• Identify the eect sizes of potential policy

interventions on environmental lead levels,

blood lead levels, and educational and behavioral

outcomes for use in quantitative modeling

• Determine the populations aected by the

prospective policies

• Document known sources of exposure

for aected populations and vulnerable

subpopulations

Articles in medical, public health, education,

and child development publications, including

original papers, meta-analyses, syntheses,

and literature reviews

Case studies

• Illustrate if and how recommended policies have

been implemented at the state and local levels to

provide pragmatic information

Informant interviews

• Capture the perspectives of stakeholders,

such as parents of children with a history of lead

exposure, businesses that could be aected by

the policies, and environmental health and early

childhood experts and advocates

Table A.1

Summary of Research Methods

Continued on next page

Policy screening process

The Health Impact Project conducted policy screening between August and December 2016 using the

following criteria:

• Will Congress or a federal, state, or municipal agency likely consider the policy within the next 18-36 months?

• Does an authoritative document (i.e., a produced by a multidisciplinary task force, advisory committee,

professional organization, or government body) cite the policy as a recommendation?

• Is the policy a high priority for aected populations?

• What is the expected result of the policy intervention in terms of the number of children aected and eect

size of the intervention?

The timeframe criteria reﬂect the team’s desire to identify policies that can reasonably be advanced in time

to protect the next generation of children. The 18-36 month window assumes policy adoption, but not full

implementation. The team relied on authoritative documents to identify recommendations that addressed

stakeholder priorities and that experts and advocates had previously vetted. To avoid potential conﬂicts between

recommendations promoted by agencies and experts and those endorsed by community members, the team

speciﬁcally sought input from aected populations during the policy screening process.

The screening process began with an Aug. 5 meeting of advocates and experts from the ﬁelds of water, housing,

soil, consumer products, and early childhood to identify “best policy bets.” The research team used the ﬁndings

from the meeting, combined with recommendations developed by a wide range of organizations and agencies, to

generate a list of more than 100 policy options for consideration. (The full list is available upon request.)

The team then reﬁned the list to include policies that would result in either reduced environmental sources of

lead (prevention) or the provision of a service for children at risk or with a history of exposure (response). This

screening led the team to initially exclude ﬁnancing strategies, operational policies (e.g., task forces, job training),

and approaches to blood lead testing.

Method Purpose Source

National listening sessions

• Identify possible unintended beneﬁts and

consequences of policy interventions

• Prioritize recommendations

Federal, state, and local ocials, industry

representatives, academics, and advocacy

organizations

Focus groups

• Prioritize recommendations

• Document community concerns and priorities

• Identify possible unintended beneﬁts and

consequences of policy interventions

Landlords and property managers

Parents of children with a history of lead

exposure

People at high risk of exposure, and other

concerned community members

Quantitative models

• Quantify potential eects of policy interventions

on early childhood and adult outcomes, including

cognitive and social/emotional development,

academic achievement, and earnings

• Predict policies’ long-term economic impacts in

terms of potential cost and future savings

Social Genome Model and Value of

Prevention Tool

After the initial screening, about 50 policies remained for consideration. In October 2016, subject matter experts

helped the team further narrow the list to 28 for potential study. The experts subsequently identiﬁed several

underrepresented policy areas on the list, including schools, plumbing ﬁxtures, wells, lead paint hazards created

through demolition, exposures associated with Superfund sites, lead in ambient air, occupational hazards,

blood lead testing, state and municipal policies, and early interventions for children exposed to lead. The team

conducted informant interviews and additional literature reviews to ﬁll many of these gaps. For example, at the

recommendation of stakeholders, the team included several ﬁnancing policies deemed critical to implementing

the prevention policies, as well as options related to blood lead testing, Superfund, early interventions, and

schools and child care facilities. In total, the team studied 10 high-level policy options and analyzed 70 tactics for

implementing those 10.

In November 2016, the Health Impact Project conducted a series of national virtual conversations to collect

stakeholder feedback on the interventions and tactics. Between December 2016 and January 2017, the team held

focus groups to document the concerns of communities across the country. Feedback from these events also

helped reﬁne the list of policies considered for analysis.

Literature review

Researchers from Pew, with support from Child Trends and other experts, led the literature search to answer a

set of research questions on the eects of lead on young children and interventions to prevent and respond to

exposure. The initial research questions were:

1. To what extent do blood lead levels above 5 μg/dL aect cognition and academic achievement (i.e., IQ,

reading scores, math scores, high school drop-out/graduation rates, cognition, attention disorder, memory

impairment)?

2. To what extent do elevated blood lead levels aect lifetime earnings (i.e., lifetime earnings, employment,

income)?

3. To what extent do elevated blood lead levels aect criminal behavior (i.e., delinquency, violent crime)?

4. To what extent do elevated blood lead levels aect health (i.e., hypertension, cardiovascular health,

immunological health, endocrine health, child growth rates, hearing)?

5. To what extent does the replacement of lead service lines decrease or prevent elevated blood lead levels?

6. To what extent does lead hazard control prevent elevated blood lead levels?

7. How do nutritional interventions impact cognition and educational achievement for children exposed to lead

(i.e., IQ, reading scores, math scores, high school drop-out/graduation rates, cognition, attention disorder,

memory impairment)?

8. How do nutritional interventions impact cognition and educational achievement for children with blood

lead levels less than 5 μg/dL (i.e., IQ, reading scores, math scores, high school drop-out/graduation rates,

cognition, attention disorder, memory impairment)?

9. How do early childhood education interventions impact cognition and educational achievement for children

with blood lead levels greater than 5 μg/dL (i.e., IQ, reading scores, math scores, high school drop-out/

graduation rates, cognition, attention disorder, memory impairment)?

10. How do early childhood interventions impact cognition and educational achievement for children with blood

lead levels less than 5 μg/dL (i.e., IQ, reading scores, math scores, high school drop-out/graduation rates,

cognition, attention disorder, memory impairment)?

11. To what extent do detectable levels of lead in a pregnant woman’s blood aect her newborn’s health?

12. To what extent do the impacts of lead poisoning increase societal or taxpayer costs?

Pew searched PubMed, Cochrane, Campbell, ERIC, EBSCO, Google Scholar, and Google databases for systematic

reviews, experimental studies, and quasi-experimental studies conducted over the past 30 years. For searches

that yielded a large number of results, the team screened a minimum of 50 abstracts to determine relevance to

the research questions, and for those that produced fewer than ﬁve articles, the team employed a “snowball”

method to identify relevant peer-reviewed studies and gray literature from citations and bibliographies. The

search excluded articles published in languages other than English or that studied populations outside the

United States, except when no U.S. studies addressed a particular research question, in which cases the team

expanded the search to international articles published in English. For each study, the team documented the

target population, source name, article title, year of publication, authors, source type (e.g., peer-reviewed or gray

literature), analysis type (i.e., systematic review, experimental study, quasi-experimental), data sources and

measures, and key ﬁndings. The initial search included 100 articles in medical, public health, education, and child

development publications, including original papers, meta-analyses, syntheses, and literature reviews.

Concurrent with the literature search, the Health Impact Project commissioned ﬁve sector-speciﬁc white papers

to summarize the literature related to the prospective policies. Experts prepared papers on housing, water,

consumer products, early interventions, and schools and child care facilities and contributed additional references

to be included in the Pew literature review. Child Trends reviewed the sector-speciﬁc white papers to compare

the studies cited in those with other identiﬁed articles to ensure that no major research was omitted. Experts

recommended several international studies to ﬁll gaps where U.S. data were lacking and the team eventually

included those in the search results. Pew, with assistance from Child Trends, the Urban Institute, and Altarum

Institute, conducted additional literature searches throughout the project based on input from key informants,

subject matter experts, and advisory committee members. The team ultimately reviewed well over 700 articles.

Of those, Child Trends reviewed 176 studies that provided information necessary to inform the inputs in the two

quantitative models. Child Trends, the Urban Institute, and Altarum Institute performed a third-party review of

these selected studies to establish eect sizes for interventions that would be included in the models. Using a ﬁve

category scale, Child Trends evaluated the strength of each study used to estimate eect sizes based on design,

sample size, attrition rate, intent-to-treat analysis, clarity of variable deﬁnitions, and whether or not the studies

adjusted for socio-economic status. (See Table A.2.)

Study type Lower quality Higher quality

Level 1: Meta-analysis

Design

Quasi Experimental Designs (QEDs) or mix

of randomized control trials and QEDs

Randomized control trials

Number of included studies Fewer than 10 10 or more

Inclusion/exclusion criteria

Unclearly deﬁned, or inconsistently applied

across studies

Clearly deﬁned, and consistently applied

across studies

Attrition

Attrition rate of included studies is 50% or

more and/or varies between treatment and

control group

Attrition rate of included studies is 49% or lower

Control variables

Included studies don’t control for

socioeconomic status

Included studies that control for at least one

measure of socioeconomic status, such as

mother’s education or free and reduced-price

meal eligibility

Intent-to-treat analysis Not used by included studies Used by included studies

Outcome measures

Unclearly deﬁned, not valid and reliable, or

inconsistently applied across study participants

Clearly deﬁned, valid, reliable, and implemented

consistently across study participants

Level 2: Randomized controlled trial

Sample size

No power analysis conducted, or, sample size

insucient to conduct all analyses as required

Sample size is sucient to conduct all analyses as

required. If suciency of sample size is not clear,

then a power analysis was conducted

Attrition

Attrition rate is 50% or more, and/or attrition rate

varies between treatment and control group

Attrition rate is 49% or lower

Control variables Doesn’t include SES

Includes at least one measure of SES such as

mother’s education or free and reduced price

meal eligibility

Intent-to-treat analysis Not used Used

Outcome measures

Unclearly deﬁned, or not valid and reliable, or

inconsistently applied across study participants

Clearly deﬁned, valid, reliable, and implemented

consistently across all study participants

Level 3: Controlled trial without randomization (Quasi-experimental design)

Sample size

No power analysis conducted, or, sample size

insucient to conduct all analyses as required

Sample size is sucient to conduct all analyses as

required. If suciency of sample size is not clear,

then a power analysis was conducted

Attrition

Attrition rate is 50% or more, and/or attrition rate

varies between treatment and control group

Attrition rate is 49% or lower

Control variables Doesn’t include SES

Includes at least one measure of SES such as

mother’s education or free and reduced price meal

eligibility

Intent-to-treat analysis ITT analyses not used ITT analyses used

Outcome measures

Unclearly deﬁned, or not valid and reliable, or

inconsistently applied across study participants

Clearly deﬁned, valid, reliable, and implemented

consistently across all study participants

Table A.2

Strength of Evidence Criteria for Literature Review Used in

Quantitative Models

Continued on next page

Study type Lower quality Higher quality

Level 4: Cohort study or case-control study

Sample size Insucient to conduct all analyses as intended Sucient to conduct all analyses as intended

Control variables Doesn’t include SES

Includes at least one measure of SES such as

mother’s education or free and reduced price meal

eligibility

Outcome measures

Unclearly deﬁned, or not valid and reliable, or

inconsistently applied across study participants

Clearly deﬁned, valid, reliable, and implemented

consistently across all study participants

Additional criteria for prospective cohort studies only

Attrition Attrition rate is 50% or more Attrition rate is 49% or lower

Additional criteria for retrospective cohort studies and case control studies

Potential for recall bias Data subject to bias (e.g., subjects asked to recall)

Data from administrative source or recorded prior

to start of study

Missing data 33% or more of cases are missing data Less than 33% of cases are missing data

Additional criteria for case control studies only

Sample selection Convenience sample

Sample selection method accounts for bias (e.g.,

matching, two or more control groups, random

sampling of cases and controls)

Level 5: Cross sectional study

Representativeness

Representative at state or local level; not

representative; representativeness unknown;

or, nationally representative but response rate

below 80%

Nationally representative, with a response rate of

80% or higher

Sample size Insucient to conduct all analyses as intended Sucient to conduct all analyses as intended

Control variables Doesn’t include a measure of SES

Includes at least one measure of SES such as

mother’s education or free and reduced price meal

eligibility

Outcome measures

Unclearly deﬁned, or not valid and reliable, or

inconsistently applied across study participants

Clearly deﬁned, valid, reliable, and implemented

consistently across all study participants

Case studies

Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) received grants from

the Health Impact Project to create case studies (see the “Policy in Action” listings in the Table of Contents)

detailing successful prevention and response strategies at the state and local levels. To select the case study

subjects, NCHH reviewed literature and developed three criteria for policies and programs under consideration:

diversity of lead hazard exposures addressed (water, housing, consumer products, etc.), geographic diversity, and

impact (based on published evaluations or summaries of the policies and programs). NCHH contacted members

of the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition, a broad voluntary coalition of over 300 organizations, for

recommendations on possible case study locations. Based on the literature review and the responses from

coalition members, NCHH recommended 20 communities as models to include in the case studies. The Health

Impact Project made additions to the list using the same criteria. Ultimately, TFAH developed 22 case studies,

and the study team selected 15 for inclusion in the ﬁnal report based on the above criteria and a determination of

relevance to the policies analyzed.

Listening sessions

The Health Impact Project held ﬁve national listening webinars to collect additional stakeholder feedback. The

topics of the web-based conversations included housing, schools and childcare, early childhood development,

and consumer products; one general session was also held. In total, more than 200 people registered for

the listening sessions and approximately 195 attended, including individuals from federal, state, and local

environmental, health, housing, water, and utilities agencies and tribal health departments as well as nonproﬁt

and advocacy organizations who work with policymakers. Stakeholders unable to participate through the

webinars had the opportunity to provide feedback through an online form. The team collected and stored under

password protection registrants’ names, email addresses, and organizations and summarized all feedback

provided in the session thematically.

Parent conversations

The Health Impact Project led two conference calls with a total of eight parents of lead-poisoned children and

guided the participants in open-ended discussions. The conversations focused primarily on interventions for

children with a history of lead exposure and parents’ experiences with various programs. The team summarized

parent feedback thematically and identiﬁed relevant quotes for inclusion in the report. The Health Impact

Project collected and stored under password protection participants’ names, cities and states of residence,

and email addresses.

Focus groups

The Health Impact Project held a total of 16 focus groups between December 2016 and January 2017 in

Baltimore; Chicago; Flint, Michigan; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; New Orleans; Philadelphia; and Warren, Arkansas,

with a diverse group of participants, including property owners and landlords, residents of communities aected

by lead exposure, parents of lead exposed children, and representatives from organizations supporting these

populations. (See Table A.3.) The team led the semi-structured, open-ended discussions to identify which

lead sources raised the greatest concern, obtain feedback on potential policies to prevent and respond to lead

exposure, and provide stakeholders with an opportunity to inform the policy development process.

The team sought Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the focus group methodology and the Chesapeake

board deemed the project exempt from IRB oversight on Dec. 7. Two to 15 individuals attended each focus group,

and participation was entirely voluntary. Focus group settings included a library, a church, and several facilities

operated by community organizations. Host site contacts chose the locations based on their convenience and

accessibility. Focus group participants received prepaid Visas in the amount of $25 as thank-you gifts. The team

recorded each participant’s city and state of residence. No other identifying information was collected. The team

summarized the ﬁndings, and identiﬁed key themes.

Participant

demographics

n %

Race and ethnicity

American Indian and

Alaska Native

7 7%

Asian and Paciﬁc

Islander

2 2%

Black, non-Hispanic 44 42%

Hispanic, any race 17 16%

White, non-Hispanic 25 24%

Other, including two

or more races

7 7%

No response 2 2%

Educational attainment

Some high school 8 8%

High school/GED 25 24%

Associate's degree 4 4%

Some college, no

degree

16 15%

College graduate or

above

47 45%

Other 2 2%

No response 2 2%

Annual household income

$19,999 or less 24 23%

$20,000 to $24,999 11 11%

$25,000 to $34,999 14 13%

$35,000 to $44,999 18 17%

$45,000 to $54,999 7 7%

$55,000 to $64,999 4 4%

$65,000 to $74,999 4 4%

$75,000 and over 16 15%

No response 6 6%

Housing characteristics n %

Type

Single-family 65 63%

Duplex 10 10%

Multiunit 17 16%

No response 12 12%

Age

Built before 1940 22 21%

Built between 1940

and 1959

20 19%

Built between 1960

and 1978

17 16%

Built after 1978 10 10%

Don’t know 23 22%

No response 12 12%

Ownership

Own 59 57%

Rent 33 32%

No response 12 12%

History of lead testing

Paint/dust 13 13%

Water 15 14%

Paint/dust and water 18 17%

Neither 40 38%

Don’t know 7 7%

No response 11 11%

Table A.3

Focus Group Participant Demographics and Other Characteristics

Quantitative methods

Social Genome Model

The Social Genome Model (SGM) is a lifecycle microsimulation model starting at birth and moving through ﬁve

subsequent life stages—early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, transition to adulthood, adulthood—

through age 40. The version of the SGM used for this research (the SGM79) is constructed using two data sets

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Surveys: the Children of the National Longitudinal

Survey of Youth (CNLSY) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). The CNLSY follows from

birth through age 19 a sample of children born to the women of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979

(NLSY79). Most of the children in the CNLSY were born in the 1980s or early 1990s. The second survey is the

NLSY79 itself, which follows a sample of people in the United States born between 1957 and 1964 from their ﬁrst

interview (ages 14-22 in 1979) into mid-adulthood. Data are available for 25 rounds of data collection, through

2012 when respondents were 47-55 years of age.

To combine the two sources of information, SGM uses information about the children in the CNLSY from birth

through age 19 and then statistically matches them to comparable individuals in the NLSY79 sample based on

variables measuring circumstances at birth and adolescence common in the two data sets. The NLSY79 data are

then used to estimate outcomes at age 29 and age 40 for the children in the CNLSY. The overall model is based

on data on 8,056 children. Lifetime income estimates are based on data from the 1998-2015 Current Population

Survey, which is the primary source of labor force statistics for the population of the United States.

208

The SGM uses CNLSY and NLSY data to track children’s development from birth onward and employs regression

models to assess the relationships between children’s early life circumstances and subsequent outcomes such

as educational attainment, grade point average, teen parenthood, criminal conviction, and lifetime family income.

The model enables researchers to assess how actions at developmentally signiﬁcant life stages reverberate

through a person’s life. For example, circumstances at birth inﬂuence early childhood outcomes, which in turn

aect middle childhood. Those middle and early childhood conditions inﬂuence adolescent outcomes, and so

on through middle age. Using data on children to assess these eects over time allows the SGM to explore how

early changes may ripple through outcomes later in life. Thus, if lead reduction improves a child’s reading ability

in early childhood, the SGM can be used to see how that improvement in reading leads, for instance, to greater

educational attainment and higher income later in life.

Because lead is not a variable included in the surveys that underpin the model’s dataset, the Urban Institute

and Child Trends had to estimate the blood lead levels for the children in the sample by using blood lead data

from the 2011-12 and 2013-14 NHANES to predict the age 1-5 blood lead level of each child. In other words,

they created in the dataset a cohort of children with blood lead levels consistent with those of the national child

population based on regression models of the logarithm of blood lead as a function of race, ethnicity, gender,

family income, maternal education, and maternal marital status, using children age 1-5 in the combined NHANES

samples. The average blood lead level in the combined two surveys for children ages 1-5 was 1.1 μg/dL, which

may be higher than what will be seen among the 2018 birth cohort. One option to address this possibility was to

extrapolate the trend line from earlier years to predict 2018 levels, but this strategy would underestimate 2018

levels if the rate of decline is slower between 2014 and 2018. Data from the CDC lead surveillance program

indicate that the number of children with blood lead above 10 μg/dL leveled o between 2009 and 2015.

209

The potential for similar settling at lower levels in subsequent years makes the 2011-14 NHANES data the most

accurate approach to predicting 2018 blood lead levels.

The modeling team assigned a blood lead value to every person in the SGM cohort to identify whether that

person was part of the target population for a policy intervention. This blood lead variable was not used in the

SGM regression equations to predict later life outcomes, so the results cannot be biased by misclassifying a

person’s blood lead level. The team modeled the policy eects by directly altering the values of the early and

middle childhood outcome scores (reading, math, and behavior) to the degree that the literature suggests given

the change in blood lead levels resulting from a given policy intervention. For example, if a child in the SGM has

a blood lead level of 1.5 μg/dL and is in the target population to receive a policy intervention that prevents a

50 percent increase in blood lead, his or her blood lead should be 0.75 μg/dL lower than without the intervention.

Using the expected reading score eect size, estimated from the literature, of a 0.0405 standard deviation

increase in reading score for every 1 μg/dL decrease in blood lead, this child’s reading score would improve by

0.0304 (i.e., 0.75 x 0.0405) standard deviations. This change in reading score, in turn, aects the person’s later

outcomes, such as high school graduation and family income at age 40.

The modeling team identiﬁed the eect of blood lead levels on variables in the model’s dataset that the literature

review indicated are aected by blood lead levels. The model contains the following outcomes for which Child

Trends and the Urban Institute gathered eect sizes for children ages 5 and 11 from the literature:

• Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) reading scores.

• PIAT math scores.

• Behavior Problems Index (BPI) hyperactivity subscale.

• BPI antisocial behavior subscale.

No studies estimated an association between blood lead levels and the speciﬁc variables in the SGM, so the

modeling team relied on estimates from other similar standardized reading and math assessments and on indices

of antisocial and hyperactive behavior. For reading and math scores, Child Trends used the median eect size for

all the included studies. For hyperactivity and antisocial behavior, most studies included multiple measures of

behavior, so the team ﬁrst calculated a mean eect size for each study, then used the median value of the study

means. For example, if a study examined parent and teacher reports of hyperactivity on one scale, Child Trends

took the mean of those two measures and then used the median of those means across all the studies. Signiﬁcant

and insigniﬁcant eect sizes were included in the calculations. A summary of the basis for the eect size

calculations is available upon request and includes a list of the research used as well as eect sizes and average

blood lead levels reported in each study.

Table A.4 provides the results of the SGM modeling of the prevention interventions: lead service line

replacements, lead paint hazard control, lead-safe renovation practices, and the elimination of leaded aviation

fuel. Although the dierences in outcomes for children with and without interventions appear small, it is

important to bear in mind that these are the changes for the entire population of children targeted for an

intervention (for example, all those who live in a house built before 1960), not just those who are at greatest risk

or have the highest blood lead levels. The eects for subpopulations with higher blood lead levels would be larger.

Additionally, improving outcomes such as high school graduation and the attainment of a college degree are

dicult to achieve with any one intervention since many factors play a role. Finally, the fact that blood lead levels

have declined rapidly as a result of the reduction of lead in the environment is evidence that policy interventions

make a dierence for the population—and the fact that disparities in exposure have shrunk over the last two

decades suggests that policies have been appropriately targeted. Intervening on lower levels of lead in blood

result in more modest improvements in later-in-life outcomes than in the recent past when blood lead levels were

much higher. But even modest outcomes when applied across a population of newborn children are meaningful,

both for individual children and for the entire cohort of school aged children.

100

Children living in pre-1978 homes

who experience a renovation,

repair, and painting (RRP) event

(N=211,167)

Lead paint hazard control (LHC)

for children living in pre-1960 low-

income housing (N=321,182)

Unsafe RRP Safe RRP

Children

beneﬁting

Without LHC With LHC

Children

beneﬁting

Outcomes at age 19

Average high school GPAs 2.86 2.87 N/A 2.79 2.80 N /A

Earn high school diplomas 81.6% 82.0% 900 72.1% 72.4% 1,000

Become teen parents 15.4% 15.2% 500 28.0% 28.0% 100

Be convicted of crimes 18.0% 17.7% 700 23.8% 23.6% 600

Outcomes at age 29

Complete 4-year degrees 23.5% 23.8% 800 15.0% 15.1% 400

Income

Mean family income at

age 40 (2015$)

$69,100 $70,000 N/A $58,300 $58,900 N /A

Estimated lifetime family income

(2015$)

$838,300 $848,700 N/A $701,300 $707,200 N/A

Notes: Analysis is based on the SGM’s sample of about 8,000 children drawn from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth dataset. To arrive at the number of children positively aected, the research team applied the percentage point dierences between the

baseline conditions and total prevention to the estimated number of children in the 2018 birth cohort who would receive the intervention.

Source: Social Genome Model analysis by Child Trends and the Urban Institute

Table A.4

Summary of Eects of Selected Lead-Exposure Prevention Policies

Impacts on education, income, teen parenthood, and crime

101

Full lead service line (LSL)

replacement for children living

in homes built before 1986 with

baseline water lead levels of 11.4

ppb (N=272,285)

Full lead service line replacement

for children living in homes built

before 1986 with baseline water

lead levels of 5 ppb (N=272,285)

Children ages 1-5 living within

0.6 miles of an airport serving

planes using leaded aviation gas

(N=226,530)

With an LSL

Without an

LSL

Children

beneﬁting

With an LSL

Without an

LSL

Children

beneﬁting

Without

removing

lead from

aviation gas

Removing

lead from

aviation gas

Children

beneﬁting

2.90 2.90 N/A 2.90 2.90 N/A 2.83 2.83 N /A

82.8% 82.9% 300 82.8% 82.9% 0 80.8% 80.9% 0

14.0% 13.9% 200 14.0% 13.9% 100 15.9% 15.9% 0

17.7% 17.6% 100 17.7% 17.7% 100 17.8% 17.8% 0

24.6% 24.8% 600 24.7% 24.8% 200 23.0% 23.0% 100

$70,700 $71,100 N /A $70,700 $70,800 N/A $67,500 $67,600 N /A

$855,400 $859,500 N/A $855,400 $857,000 N /A $823,700 $824,400 N /A

102

Value of Prevention Tool

Using data from the literature and national datasets, the Value of Prevention Tool predicts the ﬁnancial and health

eects of investments in social determinants of health, such as access to early education. The tool can assess the

potential cost and future savings associated with various policies that would accrue to the federal government,

states, and society at large based on the intervention’s predicted impact on mortality, morbidity, future earnings

and health care and incarceration costs, and noneconomic impacts such as educational attainment.

The tool tracks impacts on the federal government, speciﬁcally those related to spending on Medicaid, CHIP,

Medicare, and other medical costs, such as exchange subsidies and care for veterans and military families;

safety net expenditures; Social Security spending; incarceration costs; and tax revenue. State eects may

include Medicaid and other medical spending, safety net expenditures, and incarceration costs. The tool also

tracks impacts on the federal, state, and local governments in the form of changes in tax receipts resulting from

dierences in lifetime earnings.

The tool provides an assessment of the QALYs that could be gained by the aected population as well as the

predicted impact of each intervention on health-adjusted life expectancy, both of which account for the amount

of time lived in less than perfect health. QALYs are the number of additional healthy years of life resulting

from an intervention measured on a scale of 0 to 1, where 0 and 1 correspond to the worst and best possible

health outcomes.

For this project, Altarum used the tool to estimate the beneﬁts of policies that reduce exposure to lead for an

annual cohort of children (about four million births) over their lifetimes. These beneﬁts consist of increased

lifetime earnings, reduced health expenditures, decreased education spending, and a lower risk of mortality;

are measured in 2015 constant dollars; and are discounted at 3 percent. When cost estimates of a policy were

available, the tool reported the cost-beneﬁt ratio of an investment.

Reductions in incarceration costs were estimated but not depicted in the tables because they were very

small compared with the other outcomes measured. The beneﬁts of decreased incarceration are based on a

longitudinal study that linked blood lead levels to arrest rates. However, that study only documented eects

for blood lead above 6 μg/dL,

210

a level that few children experience today, so the predicted beneﬁts associated

with reduced criminal involvement are relatively small. The Value of Prevention Tool is designed to measure

incarceration costs so the team converted arrests to incarceration using FBI data to predict both the probability

and length of incarceration given an arrest for a nonviolent and violent crime. The model did not account for other

potential criminal justice-related cost reductions, such as those associated with arrests.

Importantly, the costs and beneﬁts Altarum calculated are for a single annual cohort of children. Many of these

policies could and probably would be implemented over a longer period, but the results are reported only for a

single cohort to ensure consistency across policies and so readers can compare these simulations to previous

work.

211

Further, estimating beneﬁts beyond the ﬁrst cohort introduces greater uncertainty because it requires the

prediction of cohorts’ blood lead levels and other characteristics further into the future. The tool models lifetime

earnings beneﬁts by estimating changes in IQ from lead exposure and their downstream impact on earnings

potential, health savings by approximating lead exposure’s short-term health costs (testing, oce and emergency

room visits) and long-term impacts (increased risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and associated

costs), and education savings by estimating the decreased need for special education and repeated grades

associated with avoided IQ losses.

103

The QALY beneﬁts are estimated through reductions in mortality risk associated with lifetime cardiovascular

disease, which puts a dollar value on increased healthy years of life and is included in many regulatory analyses of

environmental hazards. In this report the value of a gained QALY unit is $50,000, a conservative estimate when

compared with similar analyses.

212

The team’s estimates were restricted to beneﬁts associated with reduced

cardiovascular disease because it is the only increased risk of mortality shown to occur down to blood lead levels

of zero, an important consideration given the lower levels of lead in children’s blood today.

The tool modeled the impacts of lead paint hazard control and lead service line replacement in homes for the

estimated 3,978,038 children who will be born in 2018. However, lead paint hazard control has been shown to

make changes in home dust lead levels that persist for at least 12 years, and lead service line replacement should

make permanent improvements to home water lead levels. Therefore, future children born into remediated

homes would see beneﬁts. The modeling team approximated the number of such children using data on the

housing stock and the size of future birth cohorts from the American Community Survey. This analysis showed

that in the next 10 years, about 0.25 future children on average will be born into an already remediated home.

When possible, conservative assumptions were used and only some beneﬁts were included as quantiﬁable in

the Value of Prevention Tool results. Therefore, interventions with a positive cost-beneﬁt ratio have a beneﬁcial

impact, but may have even greater positive eects not included in the results.

The tool tracks and distinguishes among beneﬁts that accrue to dierent stakeholders, including the federal

government, state and local governments, and the remainder of society, including households and businesses.

Therefore, the future beneﬁts reported are societal and include discounted beneﬁts to all entities, not a particular

stakeholder or investor. When possible, Altarum breaks out individual beneﬁts by the level of government to

which they would accrue. Many of these beneﬁts occur far in the future, so the results are highly sensitive to the

3 percent discount rate and 1 percent real-earnings growth assumptions.

213

Altarum models evaluated changes in health care costs in two pieces. The ﬁrst is short-term costs associated

with increased use of medical services, such as lead testing, oce visits, environmental investigations, and

chelation therapies. The medical procedures recommended for various blood lead levels were taken from the

American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for children above the 5 μg/dL cuto,

214

which, in turn, were

revised from the previous guidance which recommended care beginning at 10 μg/dL.

215

Cost estimates for

medical procedures were derived from Gould’s 2009 study and inﬂated to 2015 dollars using Altarum’s health

care prices index.

216

The second piece of health outcomes are long-term risks associated with lead exposure, which has a large

research base. In addition to the cognitive impacts discussed above, evidence has found harmful eects of lead

exposure on hypertension; cardiovascular, immunological, and endocrine health; child growth rates; and hearing.

However, much of this research has been done in children and adults at blood lead levels much higher than

5 μg/dL, and the strongest evidence of impacts on individuals with levels at or below 5 μg/dL is for hypertension

and cardiovascular disease. The model, therefore, included only increased mortality risk and long-term health

care expenditures associated with cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

Further, to simplify the process of estimating long-term health impacts of childhood exposure and avoid the need

for engineering models to approximate changes in blood and bone lead over time, the analysis assumes that

children’s blood lead levels persist throughout their lives. This approach is reasonable because, although blood

lead levels are likely to ﬂuctuate during a lifetime as a result of changing exposures, childhood levels are one of

the best predictors of lifetime average blood lead levels, particularly given the relationships between blood lead

and lead stored in bones.

104

The ﬁrst long-term health outcome measured was increased mortality risk through likelihood of fatal

cardiovascular disease. Initial, nonexposed mortality risks were drawn from the Underlying Cause of Death data

from the CDC.

217

The model then used research on hazard ratios to represent the increased mortality risk.

218

calculate increased mortality rates, the team identiﬁed cardiovascular and noncardiovascular mortality from the

CDC Underlying Cause of Death data and then used a linearized hazard ratio to ﬁnd the increased annual risk of

cardiovascular mortality associated with a 1 μg/dL increase in blood lead.

219

Additionally, for hypertension the model uses American Heart Association data from 2015 on hypertension

risks for baseline nonexposed risks,

220

and then other published data to calculate the increased risk of

hypertension associated with a 1 μg/dL increase in blood lead.

221

The higher prevalence of hypertension is then

used as a predictor for increased cardiovascular and health care costs through published data showing that

people with hypertension spend $5,755 in 2007 dollars more on average each year for medical expenditures.

222

Altarum then inﬂated these costs to 2015 dollars using its health care prices index and aggregated to produce

the cohort-level estimates.

The eect size of early childhood blood lead levels on IQ has been well studied, although researchers have

produced a wide range of estimates. The emphasis for this analysis was on the IQ impacts for young children with

blood lead levels less than 10 μg/dL because this is the range for most U.S. children. Strong evidence in the recent

literature suggests that the relative impacts of blood lead on IQ are much larger at lower levels.

223

Therefore, the

team estimated the impact of lead on IQ for three separate categories: children in the <5 μg/dL range, the

5-9.9 μg/dL range, and the 10+ μg/dL range.

The team identiﬁed four distinct studies of IQ in U.S.-based cohorts of young children with blood lead levels

in the <5μg/dL range

224

and standardized their estimated impacts to a 1 μg/dL increase in blood lead, measured

in IQ points.

When studies produced multiple estimates from subsamples of dierent blood lead level ranges, the research

team included all those estimates. The IQ estimates for the <5 μg/dL group ranged from a 0.19 to 2.53 decrease

in IQ points per 1 μg/dL increase in blood lead depending on study and methodology. Of the ﬁve estimates

included, the median result for the <5 μg/dL category was 0.77 IQ points lost per 1 μg/dL of additional blood lead

and the mean was 1.15 points. Altarum used the mean result of -1.15 in IQ per 1 μg/dL increase in blood level for

the <5 μg/dL analysis. The estimate is slightly more conservative than the eect size used by the EPA in its 2008

NAAQS ﬁnal rule, which was based on four studies with a median result of -1.75,

225

but is slightly more aggressive

than the -0.83 estimate found by the European Food Safety Authority in its literature review.

226

For the 5-10 μg/

dL category, the mean result was 0.51 IQ points lost, and for the 10+ μg/dL category, the mean result was 0.18

points. A summary of the basis for the eect size calculations is available upon request and includes a list of the

research used as well as eect sizes and average blood lead levels reported in each study.

Lifetime earnings

The team used a similar methodology to determine the eect of IQ changes on lifetime earnings. The team

performed a literature search of relevant studies and supplemented the results using a survey article

227

because

the universe of available data on lifetime earnings is smaller than the data on IQ and blood lead levels. The team

found no literature directly connecting blood lead levels to lifetime earnings and therefore employed a two-step

approach commonly used in the ﬁeld, ﬁrst linking blood lead levels to IQ as described above and then linking

IQ to earnings.

105

Altarum further restricted the estimates of IQ eects on earnings to studies that analyzed males and females

together because the evidence suggests that IQ impacts on earnings for women are larger than those for men,

so studies that only report the eect size for males would underestimate the total. Additionally, Altarum

focused on studies that included in lifetime earnings not only hourly or annual wages but also likelihood of

labor force participation, because studies that consider just wage eects underestimate the impact of IQ on

lifetime earnings.

In addition, the team excluded studies that analyzed the impacts of IQ on lifetime earnings while controlling for

educational attainment because increased education is a probable pathway through which higher IQ increases

earnings, and controlling for education creates a “blocking variable” that results in an underestimate of the

impact of IQ on earnings.

228

Further, some studies attempted to approximate the lifetime value of blood lead

reduction through willingness-to-pay analyses for certain lead remediation and treatment,

229

but Altarum

deemed them inappropriate and excluded them because of the probable information asymmetries related to

the eectiveness of lead-related treatment.

The result of the above work is three estimates. Two focus on the NLSY79 cohort and a third incorporates

some evidence from literature that drew on the NLSY’s 1997 cohort, a nationally representative sample of

approximately 9,000 youths who were 12 to 16 years old as of Dec. 31, 1996. One ﬁnds an overall impact of a

single IQ point on lifetime earnings of 1.43 percent in the NLSY79 sample and similar eects in the NLSY97

data. The second estimates an earnings impact of 2.56 percent, and the third estimates a 2.82 percent eect.

230

Taking the mean of these three estimates, Altarum used an eect size of a 2.27 percent increase in earnings per

IQ point for this analysis.

Some researchers in this ﬁeld view these estimates of IQ impacts on earnings as aggressive because of the

inability to control for other noncognitive variables, such as self-control and conscientiousness.

231

Others suppose

that 1.1 percent may be more appropriate, but the team found only one study that included noncognitive controls

in a lifetime earnings regression analysis.

232

Furthermore, because the Value of Prevention Tool does not include

noncognitive eects, the estimated eect size of 2.27 percent best aligns with the data incorporated into the tool.

Economic beneﬁts

The quantiﬁable beneﬁts of reducing child lead exposure are dominated by the expected increases in future

lifetime incomes as a result of improved cognitive and noncognitive ability, increased educational attainment,

and greater labor force participation. However, the Value of Prevention Tool also includes beneﬁts associated

with reductions in special education and lifetime health spending and increases in expected lifespans as a result

of lower blood lead levels. Although the Value of Prevention and Social Genome models are structured dierently

and draw on dierent types of information, when considering a common outcome, such as the discounted

present value of lifetime income, they would reach conclusions within the same order of magnitude.

Education

Education impacts are estimated through expected changes in IQ as described above. Previous lead modeling

literature approximated the additional educational costs associated with children with blood lead levels above

20 μg/dL. One study estimated that 20 percent of those children would require an additional three years of

special education.

233

Altarum instead modeled possible increases in special education spending for all children

exposed to lead. This was done by approximating the number of children whose IQs would decline below the

70 point threshold as a result of lead exposure and assuming that all those children would require special

education interventions. The analysis also assumed a standard normal IQ distribution and used the IQ-to-blood

106

lead level eect sizes described above to estimate the number of children aected. For example, children in the

5 to 10 μg/dL blood lead category were predicted to lose 6.2 IQ pts as a result of their full lead exposure, so the

model estimated that any child within this blood lead level range and the post-intervention distribution between

76 and 70 IQ points (3.6 percent of children) would fall below the 70 point threshold absent elimination of blood

lead and would require additional special education. The analysis then assumed that special education spending

for these children would persist throughout their primary school years.

The expected additional cost of a year of special education was estimated for the 1999-2000 school year to

be $8,040 per student.

234

This number was inﬂated using the CPI to 2015 dollars. Total educational spending

was estimated by multiplying the number of aected children by the per-year per-student cost and then by the

number of primary education years.

Assumptions for modeled policies

Lead service line replacement

• Because of a lack of data for most of the inputs, the models had to rely on a range of available information

sources. For the number of LSLs in the country, this analysis relied in part on self-reported survey data

collected from water utilities and on input from industry representatives.

235

No data source was found that

could document how many children are served by those lines or their blood lead levels. The team used a

2016 study to estimate that 6.84 percent of the population is served by a lead service line and then applied

that percentage to the roughly 4 million children in the 2018 cohort to determine the number of children who

would be served by a lead service line (272,285).

236

• Limited data connect lead levels in water to blood lead levels in children so the research team assumed that

replacing an LSL prevents a 0.40 μg/dL increase in blood lead. This estimate is derived from proposed IEUBK

model coecients.

237

An alternative to the IEUBK estimate would have been to use ﬁndings from one study

that found a 20 percent reduction in blood lead levels for children exposed to less than 5 ppb of lead in water

compared with those exposed to greater than 5 ppb.

238

However, that report used data from a 2005 pooled

analysis, which drew water samples in such a way that they may not have accurately depicted the exposure

risk. Alternatively, a Canadian study showed a 35 percent decrease in blood lead for every 1 ppb decline

in water lead levels.

239

Assuming that LSL replacement reduces water lead levels from 11.4 to 2.0 ppb, the

Canadian ﬁndings suggest a resulting 98 percent decrease in blood lead levels, which seems implausible

given that children are also at risk from other sources of exposure. Ultimately, the research team used recently

proposed parameters for the IEUBK model that suggest a 0.5 μg/dL change in mean blood lead level is caused

by a 11.8 ppb increase in water lead. The team converted this to a 0.04 μg/dL increase in blood lead for every 1

ppb increase in water lead.

240

• In the absence of national data to characterize the level of lead in drinking water in homes served by LSLs, the

research team used two water lead levels for reference: 11.4 ppb lead based on unpublished sampling data

from ﬁve utilities in the Midwest and 5 ppb from unpublished Canadian data.

241

These levels were selected to

represent a system in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule, and to reﬂect the upper bound amount of

lead in water for a system using optimized corrosion control, respectively.

• About 59 percent of the U.S. population lives in pre-1986 homes according to the American Community

Survey, so this analysis assumed the same percentage for the approximately 4 million children in the 2018

birth cohort to arrive at 2,351,498 children residing in homes built before 1986.

107

• The team assumed that children served by LSLs would have starting blood lead levels similar to the average

across children living in all homes built before 1990, speciﬁcally 1.16 μg/dL, with 9.2 percent of the cohort

having levels of at least 2 μg/dL.

• The team assumed that replacing the LSL in one home would aect one child in the initial cohort (i.e., that one

child, rather than multiple children, per cohort will be born into each home).

• The number of children born into homes with replaced LSLs in the next 10 years was estimated separately

from the initial cohort. First the percent of the housing stock that each intervention would remediate was

calculated by dividing the number of remediated homes by the total housing stock using data from the

American Community Survey.

242

This percentage was then used as the likelihood a future child will be born

into a remediated home. For example, in the LSL replacement intervention for pre-1986 housing, an estimated

0.3 percent of the housing stock would be remediated. Therefore each future child has a 0.3 percent chance

of living in a remediated home. This is likely a conservative estimate because it assumes births are evenly

distributed across the housing stock and ignores that children cluster in families and certain styles of homes.

The team also conservatively assumed that the impacts would persist for only the next 10 birth cohorts.

• In the absence of national pricing data for full LSL replacement, the research team estimated a per-unit cost of

$6,000. A 2008 national survey of utilities found that typical replacement costs ranged widely from $250 for

the utility portion and $600 for the customer portion to $3,000 and $4,000, respectively.

243

A recent informal

survey of all systems known to be pursuing full LSL replacement suggested that current costs averaged roughly

$7,500. The real cost varies greatly across regions, states, and even local providers and by the length of the

line, so the research team combined these estimates to calculate a rough $6,000 per unit cost.

244

Lead paint hazard control

• Using published literature on the eects of lead paint hazard control on dust lead levels and studies of the

relationship between levels in dust and those in blood, the team assumed that removing lead paint hazards

from homes before children are born would cut their expected blood lead levels by 39.5 percent. This involved

a two-step process. First, the team used data from a long-term follow up of lead hazard control interventions,

which found an 89 percent decline in dust lead levels 12 years after treatment.

245

The study was conducted in

189 nonrandomly selected homes from multiple regions of the country and did not include a control group for

ethical reasons. It is, nevertheless, the largest national evaluation of lead hazard control eorts and its ﬁndings

align with many smaller studies of lead paint hazard control eects.

246

• Second, the team used a an analysis of a national cross-sectional survey to predict the eect of decreased

dust lead on child blood lead levels.

247

The study was based on blood lead levels from 1999 to 2004.

(See “Uncertainty in modeling lead impacts and remediation policies” below.) The data indicated that the

above-referenced 89 percent reduction in dust lead would prevent a 39.5 percent increase in children’s

blood lead levels.

• The team provided an alternative baseline of 10 μg/sq. ft. to illustrate the beneﬁts of the intervention at lower

ﬂoor dust lead levels.

• The analysis used the American Healthy Homes Survey to estimate that about 75 percent of pre-1960 homes

and 50 percent of pre-1978 homes have lead-based paint and would require remediation.

248

• The team calculated children’s baseline blood lead levels based on NHANES data from 2011-14.

108

• The beneﬁts include one child per home from the 2018 birth cohort as well as additional children likely

to be born into the remediated homes in the subsequent 10 years. To calculate the number of children

born into a remediated home the team used the same methodology described under “Lead service line

replacement” above.

Renovation, repair, and painting

• The team consulted an EPA study which used the Leggett model to determine that following lead-safe

renovation practices would prevent a 1.08 μg/dL increase in blood lead levels of children and then used that

estimate to model the impact of compliance with the renovation rule enforcement on a single birth cohort,

in terms of lifetime earnings, health and education expenditures, and QALYs.

249

The Leggett model enables

estimates of blood lead levels and the probability of a child's concentration exceeding levels of concern based

on dierent exposure scenarios.

• Although the EPA does not require clearance dust testing following renovations, these tests were included in

this study’s cost calculations because they are necessary to conﬁrm the safety of a home or child care facility

before children are allowed to re-enter.

• The team included the annual cost of compliance for all homes and child care facilities built before 1978 so

that it could use cost information from the EPA’s regulatory impact assessment. However, to be consistent

with all of the interventions modeled in this report, the team only counted beneﬁts for children from the 2018

cohort living in those homes or visiting those facilities. As discussed, some limited beneﬁts would also accrue

to homes without children, but those impacts were excluded from the modeling.

Aviation gas

• The team used published research to determine that children living closer than 0.6 miles from airports using

leaded gas have blood lead levels that are 5.7 percent higher than those living further away.

250

• The team used EPA’s estimated number of people living within 0.6 miles from airports serving piston engine

aircraft and assumed based on the NHANES 2011-14 blood lead distribution that the children living within that

proximity had baseline blood lead levels similar to the national average.

• Other researchers have found larger beneﬁts than those shown in this report or studied the eects of aviation

emissions to the population of children living farther (up to 2.5 miles) from an airport serving piston engine

aircraft.

251

However, the research team found no published data on the number of such children nationwide

and so only modeled the distance for which data were available: 0.6 miles.

Early and middle childhood education and care

To estimate the potential impact of early and middle childhood care and education interventions on children

who have high blood lead levels, Child Trends identiﬁed evidence-based interventions and determined their eect

size on outcomes for children with other disadvantages, such as poverty and trauma, in the SGM, speciﬁcally,

reading and math scores, antisocial behavior, and hyperactivity, which are all areas of potential deﬁcit in lead-

exposed children. Child Trends evaluated the early childhood literature to identify speciﬁc programs that have

been rigorously evaluated and demonstrated to improve outcomes for children at risk for or displaying cognitive

and behavioral deﬁcits. Programs selected for the modeling eort have been the subject of previous meta-

analyses (reviews that compared multiple studies to determine typical eects), randomized controlled trials,

and quasi-experimental evaluations. In addition, research shows that addressing such disadvantages has strong

economic beneﬁts, which are not included in this analysis.

252

109

To develop the list of programs to be considered, Child Trends reviewed high-quality interventions recommended

by subject matter experts, meta-analyses, and the following additional resources:

• Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development’s compendium of evidence-based program evaluations of

interventions for children and youth.

253

• The Nurture Eect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World. Oakland, CA:

New Harbinger.

254

• Child Trends’ LINKS Compendium of random assignment intent-to-treat evaluations of social interventions

for children.

255

• Early Childhood Roots of Bullying: Early Childhood Investigations Webinar. Child Trends.

256

To be included, interventions must have been subject to a randomized evaluation and an intent-to-treat analysis.

In addition, the program had to have served children in either early or middle childhood and reported on one or

more outcome categories included in the SGM, academic, behavioral, or both.

To determine the eect size of the interventions on academic and behavioral outcomes, Child Trends initially

categorized programs into either early childhood (0-5 years old) or middle childhood (6-11 years old). Because

some were implemented over a period of time, which resulted in data being collected in waves, Child Trends

only included the ﬁnal outcome measures for those interventions. In cases when a program evaluation measured

multiple aspects of a behavioral or academic outcome, Child Trends calculated the mean eect size for each

outcome in that evaluation. Finally, to determine the overall eect size of early childhood and middle childhood

interventions, the research team used the median value across all of the program evaluations for reading,

math, and behavior, including signiﬁcant and insigniﬁcant ﬁndings. A summary of the basis for the eect size

calculations is available upon request and includes a list of the research used as well as eect sizes and average

blood lead levels reported in each study.

Uncertainty in modeling lead impacts and remediation policies

Modeling the long-term impacts, costs, and beneﬁts of early childhood focused lead remediation and prevention

policies is complex and involves high levels of uncertainty. Given available data, an analysis cannot generate

wholly accurate estimates of the eects of speciﬁc policies in reducing future blood lead levels in children and

mitigating the various eects of lead exposure, but rather is most useful to provide more insight into which

policies would most likely be eective and cost-beneﬁcial and how policies might best be structured to help

ensure their usefulness. The long-term nature of the harms resulting from lead exposure and data limitations

in quantifying these harms necessitates a multistage modeling process that can compound the eects of

uncertainties from dierent sources.

Strong evidence indicates that early childhood lead exposure is statistically correlated with intermediate

outcomes, such as IQ, reading, math, and behavior, and that they, in turn, are statistically related to lifetime

outcomes, particularly earnings and educational attainment.

However, the modeling team has found neither data that directly links primary prevention interventions or blood

lead exposure to lifetime earnings outcomes nor studies designed to prove causality in an early childhood lead

exposure and earnings relationship. Therefore, for this project the modeling team used studies that measured

the impact of lead exposure on IQ (Value of Prevention Tool) and reading scores, math scores, and behavioral

outcomes (Social Genome Model) as intermediate outcomes to predict lifetime outcomes. As a result, deﬁning

traditional statistical levels of uncertainty or “conﬁdence intervals” in the results is not possible. Statistical

110

measurements of uncertainty are driven by standard errors and are designed to measure the relationship of

multiple variables taken from data analyzing a single sample of participants.

As a substitute, the modeling team performed three separate analyses to address concerns about the uncertainty

of the estimates of the lifetime beneﬁts of reducing childhood lead exposure via policy interventions. The ﬁrst

was a qualitative exploration and the second was a set of “bounding exercises” to frame possible upper and

lower limits on the impact of certain model results. Assuming appropriate data were used in other modeling

steps, these exercises show the maximum possible beneﬁt (the prevention of any lead exposure, and therefore

the complete elimination of lead in children’s blood) that might be achieved through various policy interventions.

Finally, the modeling team used the VP Tool to perform sensitivity analyses on key areas of uncertainty.

Sensitivity analyses do not estimate statistical uncertainty, but they do provide descriptive, quantitative evidence

on how the dependent outcomes of a modeling process change depending on the inputs. The analyses chosen to

run were prioritized because either the parameter values were believed to be particularly uncertain (e.g., there are

a wide range of values in the literature) or parameter values for which even small changes in input values result in

large changes in the ﬁnal results.

Qualitative description of uncertainty

The estimation of lifetime beneﬁts of lead abatement policies is a multistage process, with uncertainties at each

step. To address these, the team developed a brief qualitative description of the modeling details relevant to each

step and of how each eect size might be larger or smaller in the real world.

Step 1: Impact of a policy intervention on lead in the environment and in children’s blood

The ability to quantify the magnitude of the eect of intervention policies on environmental and childhood blood

lead levels varies depending on the data available for each intervention. Whenever possible, the modeling team

used real-world risk and eect-size data from controlled evaluations of lead interventions; other types of studies

were also employed as needed. In some cases, no one clear eect size was evident, and the modeling team relied

on subject matter experts’ guidance to select an input for the model.

For example, for the ﬁrst intervention examined, the replacement of residential LSLs, as discussed previously,

because of a lack of data the modeling team estimated water lead levels before and after a lead service line

replacement intervention. To address the uncertainty, the team modeled two starting water levels: 11.4 μg /dL

and 5 μg/dL.

The second intervention, residential lead hazard control, has been more extensively studied, and the data have

shown robust eects over long periods. The study used in this analysis to generate the eect size for lead paint

hazard control was conducted between 2008 and 2009.

257

If lead hazard control abatement and interim control

techniques and standards have improved since then, the data may underestimate the impact of lead hazard

control implemented today. Whether dust lead levels are higher or lower than those in the underlying study

is unknown, and as pre-1960 housing continues to age, dust lead levels attributed to deteriorated paint may

increase. The modeling team presented two baseline ﬂoor dust lead scenarios to examine the impact of varying

dust lead levels on the predicted beneﬁts.

Modeling lead paint hazard control required a second step of predicting the eect of lower dust lead levels on

childhood blood lead. The modeling team considered a mix of evidence for this eect size. Although the range

was much tighter than the lead service line eect sizes, the team similarly relied on bounding assumptions

111

that the intervention could prevent some but not all lead exposure. However, whether the assumed eect size

accurately states, overstates, or understates the impact is unclear.

As with lead service line replacement, the third intervention, improved renovation and repair standards, has

a limited evidence base regarding impact. Some previous work explored the eect of a renovation on raising

child blood lead levels when compared to no renovation, but the modeling team could not ﬁnd any analyses

that speciﬁcally compared the eects of safe versus unsafe practices on blood lead levels. However, one study

looked at the impact of following the EPA rule requirements on dust lead levels,

258

and strong anecdotal evidence

and expert opinion indicate that renovations pose some of the most acute risks because they disturb and

spread lead dust.

As a result, the modeling team relied heavily on previous work by the EPA for this intervention. Because this

model is looking at the prevention of a spike in blood lead levels, it is not as well bounded as the previous

interventions. Additionally, renovation activities are likely to cause short-term spikes in blood lead rather than

prolonged exposure as from lead in soil or water, and because the comparative eects of short- vs. long-term

exposure are not well studied, the model may overstate the impacts of the improved standards.

The ﬁnal intervention, removal of lead from aviation gas, was modeled dierently. No data are available on the

prohibition of leaded aviation fuel because it has not been done. So the modeling team attempted to estimate the

eect of childhood exposure to aviation gas through the dierential of blood lead between children living near

airports (within 0.6 miles) compared with those living farther away (more than 2.5 miles). Then, using that ﬁgure,

the modeling team was able to predict the amount of blood lead that might be prevented by eliminating leaded

aviation gas. This approach may understate the impacts because it assumes that children living more than

2.5 miles from an airport are not exposed to lead from aviation emissions, which is probably untrue and leads

to a conservative estimate.

Step 2: Impact of childhood blood lead levels on intermediate outcomes

After predicting the impact on childhood blood lead levels of the four policy interventions, the modeling team

used a more comprehensive set of literature to estimate the impact on intermediate childhood outcomes. These

analyses primarily rely on regression modeling, which derives the relationship between blood lead levels and

childhood IQ, reading, math, and behavioral outcomes from data for a sample of children. These regression-based

approaches bring speciﬁc uncertainties into the modeling process. First, they are not designed to demonstrate

causal links between exposure and outcomes—that is, they are not random-assignment studies—which could

result in eect sizes that overstate the relationship. Because these are not random-assignment studies, they

instead must use control variables to account for other characteristics, such as socioeconomic status, related to

lead exposure and outcomes. These models could be missing key variables, which could also result in overstated

eect sizes. Alternatively, these models might over-control for certain variables and therefore understate the

relationship between lead and later outcomes.

Extrapolating results from this literature also includes some level of uncertainty. These studies may include

sampling errors, although many, such as those that explore the relationship between blood lead and reading

and math scores, have large sample sizes and probably low error levels. Nevertheless, sampling errors could

understate or overstate the true impacts. More concerning is the ability to apply the ﬁndings to children with very

low blood lead levels because most of these studies do not address that population and instead looked at children

with levels between 2 and 10 μg/dL. However, the majority of children today in the U.S. fall well below these

levels. The modeling team therefore extrapolated results for blood lead levels greater than 2 μg/dL to children

112

below that level and assumed linear relationships, which may over- or understate the eect sizes at lower levels.

If lead exposure below a certain threshold does no biological harm, then the linear extrapolations would overstate

the true relationship, but if, as suggested by some experts, a supralinear relationship continues at very low levels,

this analysis could be understating the eect. (Note that the VP tool used dierent eect sizes for blood lead

levels below 5 μg/dl, 5-10 μg/dl, and above 10 μg/dl to reﬂect the nonlinear relationship found in the literature).

Finally, uncertainty persists about the cumulative impacts of lead exposure, and the studies used for this analysis,

which look only at point-in-time relationships, may understate the true relationship between blood lead and IQ,

reading, math, and behavioral outcomes.

Step 3: Eect of intermediate outcomes on lifetime outcomes

Similar to the above steps connecting blood lead levels to intermediate outcomes, the relationships between

those intermediate outcomes and lifetime earnings and educational attainment are based on previous regression

models and literature. The SGM’s and VP Tool’s approaches to estimating earnings diverge somewhat in this

step, with the former relying on its well-tested and established microsimulation model, and the latter using

previous literature on the relationship between IQ and lifetime earnings.

The SGM is a regression-based model which raises concerns similar to those outlined in Step 2 above, in that it

might overstate the relationship if it misses important control variables or because it cannot show a causal link

between the regression-generated results. Additionally, the SGM process does not produce a direct calculation of

standard errors; hence, it does not provide a range around the estimated eects into which the true eect will fall.

Nevertheless, the eects shown represent the model’s best estimates.

The ﬁnal uncertainty concern in the SGM results from the use of data on past children to predict eects for

future children. The cohorts from which the samples were drawn entered adulthood as long ago as the early

1980s and grew up with much higher levels of childhood lead exposure than exist today, which could be reﬂected

in their outcome measures. Therefore, applying their childhood and adult experiences to children born in 2018

and later could cause the modeling to understate or overstate the relationship between intermediate and lifetime

outcomes, but given the increasing importance of cognitive skills for life success, they are more likely

to understate the eect sizes.

In contrast, the VP Tool uses academic literature to connect intermediate childhood IQ to lifetime earnings.

The greatest amount of uncertainty in this relationship involves IQ measurements collected at dierent points in

time. In particular, the IQ that is connected to childhood blood lead comes from tests of children at younger ages

(5-10), but the IQ measurements used to estimate impacts on lifetime earnings are from older children (around

age 18). If childhood IQ is not perfectly predictive of adolescent IQ, this process may understate or overstate the

eect of childhood blood lead on lifetime earnings. Further, these relationships are estimated through regression

models, which are subject to the same concerns listed above regarding the use of regression in the SGM process,

except for those related to older samples and to direct standard error calculations.

Bounding exercises to measure uncertainty in eect sizes

A useful process to measure and constrain uncertainty in the estimation of eect sizes is to run the models

assuming a complete elimination of blood lead. Although this process still contains uncertainty surrounding

the blood lead-to-lifetime outcome eect sizes described in Steps 2 and 3 above, it provides a useful upper

bound on the potential impacts of a given policy. In this analysis, the modeling teams ran the models measuring

the impacts of preventing blood lead levels from rising above 0 μg/dL. Although this is an impossible real-life

scenario, it represents a maximum bound on achievable beneﬁts for all policies.

113

The results of the bounding runs are available in Tables 1 and 2 of the report.

Quantitative sensitivity analyses

To address uncertainties that could not be tested in the bounding exercises, particularly those described in Steps

2 and 3 above, the modeling team performed quantitative sensitivity analyses using the VP Tool on the “Prevent

all Lead Exposure” hypothetical modeling scenario. (See Table 1.) These analyses help to better understand and

describe the sensitivity of the ﬁndings to changes in the input assumptions, coecients, and data points.

Inputs and coecients were selected for sensitivity analyses based on their likelihood of having substantial

impacts on the ﬁnal results or if the published values in the literature varied substantially. Alternative values

for each coecient were chosen through literature reviews and typically had been used in previous analyses by

other authors. Details on how each alternative value was selected can be found below in the detailed discussion

of each result.

Although the sensitivity analyses were run on the hypothetical “total prevention” scenario, the results are

relevant to all four interventions modeled in the report. In general, the relative change in beneﬁts would be similar

in the other modeling results. For example, an alternative input that reduced the total beneﬁts in this sensitivity

analysis by 50 percent would probably have close to the same eect on any of the four policy cost-beneﬁt

analyses. (See Table A.5.)

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Total discounted

beneﬁts

Beneﬁt per child

Results using original inputs $84 billion $21,000

Input tested Original value Alternative value

Alternative total

discounted beneﬁts

Alternative beneﬁt

per child

Blood lead level (BLL)

to IQ eect size

(<5 μg/dL)

1.15 2.53 $174 billion $44,000

BLL to IQ eect size

(<5 μg/dL)

1.15 0.51 $42 billion $11,000

IQ to lifetime earnings

eect size

2.27% 1.10% $45 billion $11,000

Population BLL

distribution

1.11 0.95 $74 billion $16,000

Real wage growth 1% 0% $57 billion $14,000

Gross domestic

product multiplier

1.00 1.92 $155 billion $39,000

Valuation of QALYs $50k $0k $81 billion $20,000

Discount rates 3%

1% $208 billion $52,000

5% $38 billion $9,000

7% $19 billion $5,000

Table A.5

Value of Prevention Tool Sensitivity Analysis Results

115

Blood lead level-to-IQ eect size

The modeling team reviewed the available research to ensure that its estimates of the eect size on IQ of

lead in blood were appropriate. The literature included several prospective and cross-sectional epidemiologic

studies conducted in diverse populations with adjustment for socioeconomic variables as well as parental

intelligence, education, and caregiving quality and stimulation. The studies provide strong support of the loss of

neurocognition among young children with blood lead concentrations.

259

The research literature also included

a pooled analysis of children ages 4.8-10 who participated in seven prospective studies conducted in Boston,

Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Rochester, New York, in the U.S. as well as Mexico City; Port Pirie, Australia; and

Kosovo, Yugoslavia, which found associations between blood lead levels and deﬁcits in full-scale intelligence

quotient (FSIQ), infant mental development, memory, learning, and executive function in children ages 2-17 with

mean blood levels (measured at various life stages and time periods) of 5 to 10 μg/dL. As discussed above,

when using this pooled analysis only study estimates of children with the lowest peak blood lead (<7.5 μg/dL

and <10 μg/dL) were included for the <5μg/dL eect size. The range of concurrent blood lead levels from these

categories was 0.9 to 7.4 μg/dL and 0.1 to 9.8 μg/dL.

The team was particularly interested in whether the relationship between blood lead and IQ persisted at blood

levels less than 5 μg/dL. Although few studies extend this relationship below 2 μg/dL, several found IQ deﬁcits in

children ages 2-10 with lower mean blood lead levels of 3 to 5 μg/dL.

260

Speciﬁcally, in analyses of the Boston and

Rochester cohorts and of data pooled across all seven cohorts but restricted to children in the lower blood lead

range (e.g., up to 10 μg/dL), associations were observed in children with mean levels of 3 to 4 μg/dL.

261

The mean

blood lead levels in these subsets of children were 3.3 μg/dL (Rochester) and 3.8 μg/dL (Boston), which are

closer to those of current U.S. children compared with other prospective studies. Further, the Rochester cohort

study considered the eects of several variables, including gender, family income, maternal education, race,

prenatal maternal smoking, birth weight, and maternal IQ.

262

The modeling team, with input from members of the advisory committee, made separate estimates for the blood

lead-to-IQ eect size depending on starting blood level (<5 μg/dL, 5-10 μg/dL, and 10+ μg/dL), as described

above. The estimate for levels below 5 μg/dL had by far the greatest impact on the ﬁnal results because based on

data from NHANES 2011-14, more than 90 percent of children in the U.S. fall into this group.

For the <5 μg/dL category, ﬁve estimates from the literature produced an average eect size of 1.15 IQ points per

1 μg/dL blood lead, which was used in the original analyses for this report. This result is somewhat smaller than

previous EPA estimates used in regulatory studies (1.75 in the NAAQS ﬁnal rule and 2.94 in the 2015 cost-beneﬁt

analysis on the Steam Electric Power Standards) but somewhat larger than the 0.51 coecient used in previous

research.

263

The 2.94 and 0.51 values are both based on a 2005 pooled analysis, which also was among the

studies used to derive the original assumptions for this report.

264

The 2.94 is based on the linear relationship of

children below 7.5 μg/dL, and the 0.51 is from the log-linear relationship of children between 2.4 and 10 μg/dL.

The team performed two sensitivity analyses on the blood lead-to-IQ eect size using alternate estimates of

2.53 and 0.51. The team selected these values because 2.53 is corrected from a re-analysis of the 2005 study’s

<7.5 μg/dL subsample (previously 2.94) and 0.51 is commonly used in other lead remediation studies.

265

As seen

in Table A.5, both alternate values had a substantial impact on the ﬁnal results, changing the total discounted

beneﬁts from $84 billion to $174 billion and $42 billion, respectively.

116

Lifetime earnings-to-IQ eect size

As previously discussed, the modeling team used an average of studies on the relationship between IQ and

earnings, while excluding studies that over-controlled for educational attainment or failed to calculate eect

sizes for both males and females. The 2.27 percent increase in earnings per IQ point was calculated from the

mean of three studies. Some additional literature, which the team excluded for the reasons stated above, favors

a value closer to 1.1 percent.

266

The team therefore selected 1.1 percent for the sensitivity analysis, and similar

to the IQ-to-blood lead eect size, this change had a large impact on the results, reducing total discounted

beneﬁts to $45 billion.

Starting blood lead levels

The modeling team deﬁned population blood lead levels using the two most recent samples from NHANES data

(2011-12 and 2013-14), as explained above. The team used a combined sample to provide demographic breakouts

of lead exposure as well as a larger dataset, which reduces uncertainty. However, given the persistent downward

trend in child blood lead levels since the start of NHANES data collection, the mixture of the two samples could

overestimate population blood lead concentrations. To account for this possibility, the team ran a sensitivity

analysis using only the 2013-14 distribution, which has a slightly lower mean (0.95 μg/dL vs. 1.1 μg/dL) and

a smaller percentage of children above important thresholds (2 μg/dL and 5 μg/dL). The sensitivity analysis

revealed relatively small impacts of the alternate data set on the results.

Real wage growth

The beneﬁt calculations were particularly sensitive to assumptions about the labor market and future

earnings. Real wage growth was estimated to be 1 percent, which has been used in previous work on childhood

lead exposure and is similar to estimates used in other economic projections.

267

An alternative assumption

of 0 percent real wage growth had a signiﬁcant impact on the results, reducing the beneﬁts from $84 billion

to $57 billion.

Gross domestic product

The team did not include in the original model gross domestic product (GDP) multiplier eects of the increased

income resulting from reduced childhood lead exposure. Some previous work in this area does include such

impacts, which result from the assumption that an individual who gains $1 in income will spend some of that

dollar, increasing GDP by more than $1.

268

This concept is debated among economists, though most generally

agree that the real-world multiplier is greater than 1.0 and that the eect is larger when the economy is not at

full employment. The modeling team made a conservative assumption by not including a multiplier eect for this

work. Not using a GDP multiplier makes the results more consistent with previous work that also did not include

this eect.

269

An alternative multiplier value of 1.92 was derived using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the ratio

of GDP to earned income,

270

which have been relatively consistent over the past 10 years, ranging from about 1.86

to 1.92. Altering this assumption to 1.92 had a signiﬁcant impact on the results, increasing the total beneﬁts from

$84 to $155 billion.

117

Valuation of QALYs

Another impact of reducing childhood lead exposure is greater longevity resulting from reduced risk of disease,

the beneﬁts of which are captured in the model in multiple ways: reductions in health spending, increases in

lifetime earnings, and QALYs, a calculation of the “implicit value” of added years of life. QALYs is a somewhat

intangible beneﬁt but one that is commonly included in regulatory analyses.

271

The modeling team used a

conservative valuation of $50,000 per QALY, and a sensitivity analysis to omit this variable (e.g., valuing a QALY

at zero) produced a very similar ﬁnal result of $81 billion.

Discount rate

In an economic analysis, the rate at which the value of future beneﬁts decreases relative to present-day dollars

has a substantial impact on the results. Because many of the beneﬁts from reducing childhood lead exposure

come from earnings many years in the future, the discount rate has a very large impact on the ﬁndings in this

study. A discount rate of 3 percent has become relatively standard in regulatory analyses, though, in the past,

the Oce of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Oce have advocated for using both

7 percent and 3 percent. To address this variation in the ﬁeld, the modeling team conducted a sensitivity analysis

at the 7 percent discount rate. The results were a substantially smaller present value, $19 billion rather than

$84 billion.

Although government cost-beneﬁt analyses tend to use 3 percent and 7 percent, some economists suggest

that discount rates over longer time horizons should be much lower. In particular, they have argued that when

analyzing intergenerational transfers (interventions paid for today that beneﬁt future generations), discount rates

closer to zero percent are more appropriate.

272

Conducting the sensitivity analysis using a smaller discount rate

of 1 percent yielded far greater total discounted beneﬁts of $208 billion.

118

Endnotes

1 Ronnie Levin et al., “Lead Exposures in U.S. Children, 2008: Implications for Prevention,” Environmental Health Perspectives 116, no. 10

(2008): 1285–93, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.11241; Susan M. Bernard and Michael A. McGeehin, “Prevalence of Blood Lead Levels >5

μg/dL Among U.S. Children 1 to 5 Years of Age and Socioeconomic and Demographic Factors Associated With Blood of Lead Levels 5 to

10 μg/dL, Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–1994,” Pediatrics 112, no. 6 (2003): 1308 –13, http://pediatrics.

aappublications.org/content/112/6/1308.

2 Richard Rabin, “The Lead Industry and Lead Water Pipes: A Modest Campaign,” American Journal of Public Health 98, no. 9 (2008):

1584–92, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2007.113555.

3 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Phasing Down Lead in Gasoline,” Environmental Protection Agency Journal 11, no. 4 (1985), https://

nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=93000E80.txt.

4 Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, 2013 (Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press, 2013).

5 National Research Council Committee on Measuring Lead in Critical Populations, Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other

Sensitive Populations; International Labour Organisation, “White (Painting) Convention,” 1921 (No. 13), accessed March 20, 2017, http://

www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312158.

6 International Labour Organisation, “White (Painting) Convention”; David E. Jacobs, “Lead Poisoning: Focusing on the Fix,” Journal of

Public Health Management & Practice 22, no. 4 (2016): 326, http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000430; Gerald E. Markowitz

and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

7 David E. Jacobs, “Lead Poisoning: Focusing on the Fix”; Richard Rabin, “The Lead Industry and Lead Water Pipes: A Modest Campaign.”

8 Lead-Soldered Food Cans, 60 Fed. Reg. 33106 (June 27, 1995), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-06-27/95-15593.

9 David E. Jacobs, “Lead Poisoning: Focusing on the Fix”; Gerald E. Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial.

10 David E. Jacobs, “Lead Poisoning: Focusing on the Fix”; Gerald E. Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial, 58.

11 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Phasing Down Lead in Gasoline.”

12 U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act,” accessed April 14, 2017, https://www.fda.gov/

RegulatoryInformation/LawsEnforcedbyFDA/ucm148755.htm; Randolph K. Byers and Elizabeth E. Lord, “Late Eects of Lead Poisoning

on Mental Development,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 66, no. 5 (1943): 471–94, http://rachel.org/ﬁles/document/Late_

Eects_of_Lead_Poisoning_on_Mental_devel.pdf; Gerald E. Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial, 58.

13 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA History: Lead,” accessed April 12, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-lead; U.S.

Energy Information Administration, “Gasoline Explained: Gasoline and the Environment,” accessed Feb. 7, 2017, http://www.eia.gov/

energyexplained/?page=gasoline_environment.

14 Man-Fung Tsoi et al., “Continual Decrease in Blood Lead Level in Americans: United States National Health Nutrition and Examination

Survey 1999-2014,” American Journal of Medicine 129, no. 11 (2016): 1213–18, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2016.05.042; William

Wheeler and Mary Jean Brown, “Blood Lead Levels in Children Aged 1-5 Years—United States, 1999-2010,” Morbidity and Mortality

Weekly Report 62, no. 13 (2013): 245–48, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6213a3.htm.

15 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “What Do Parents Need to Know to Protect Their Children?” accessed Jan. 27, 2017, https://

www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/acclpp/blood_lead_levels.htm.

16 National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (meeting of the Lead Poisoning Prevention

Subcommittee of the NCEH/ATSDR Board of Scientiﬁc Advisors, record of the proceedings, Atlanta, Sept. 19, 2016), https://www.atsdr.

cdc.gov/science/lpp/docs/lead_subcommittee_minutes_9_19_2016_508.pdf.

17 Ibid.

18 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Guidelines for the Identiﬁcation and Management of Lead Exposure in Pregnant and

Lactating Women” (Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Nov. 2010), https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/publications/

leadandpregnancy2010.pdf. During pregnancy and lactation, lead stored in bones can release into a mother’s blood.

119

19 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Lead,” Fed. Reg. 81, no. 201, Oct. 18,

2016, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-10-18/pdf/2016-23153.pdf; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Lead; Identiﬁcation

of Dangerous Levels of Lead; Final Rule,” 40 CFR Part 745, Fed. Reg. 66, no. 4 (2001): 1206–40, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-

2001-01-05/pdf/01-84.pdf; Code of Federal Regulations, Protection of Environment, Title 40, Part 141 (1991), http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-

bin/text-idx?SID=531617f923c3de2cbf5d12ae4663f56d&mc=true&node=sp40.23.141.i&rgn=div6; Department of Health and Human

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20 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “What Are the Health Eects of Lead?” Learn About Lead (March 2017), https://www.epa.gov/

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21 Ibid.; Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled

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23 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Integrated Science Assessment for Lead.”

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29 The models include impacts for the 2018 birth cohort up to age 100 and estimate the number of children alive at each age using CDC

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34 Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis,”

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35 Bruce Lanphear et al., “Cognitive Deﬁcits”; Lisa Chiodo et al., “Blood Lead Levels and Speciﬁc Attention Eects in Young Children,”

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36 Richard L. Canﬁeld et al., “Intellectual Impairment in Children With Blood Lead Concentrations Below 10 μg per Deciliter,” New England

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37 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Beneﬁt and Cost Analysis for the Euent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam

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38 Marie Lynn Miranda et al., “The Relationship Between Early Childhood Blood Lead Levels and Performance on End-of-Grade Tests,"

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39 J.M. Burns et al., “Lifetime Low-Level Exposure to Environmental Lead and Children's Emotional and Behavioral Development at

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40 S.M. Bernard and M.A. McGeehin, “Prevalence of Blood Lead Levels ≥5 μg/dL Among U.S. Children 1 to 5 Years of Age and

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41 Peter J. Neumann, Joshua T. Cohen, and Milton C. Weinstein, “Updating Cost-Eectiveness—The Curious Resilience of the

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42 John Paul Wright et al., “Association of Prenatal and Childhood Blood Lead Concentrations With Criminal Arrests in Early Adulthood,”

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43 Steven G. Gilbert and Bernard Weiss, “A Rationale for Lowering the Blood Lead Action Level from 10 to 2 μg/dL,” Neurotoxicology 27,

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44 Aaron Reuben et al., “Association of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Cognitive Function and Socioeconomic Status at Age 38 Years

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45 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Basic Information About Lead in Drinking Water,” accessed Dec. 12, 2016, https://www.epa.gov/

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46 Anne Sandvig et al., “Contribution of Service Line and Plumbing Fixtures to Lead and Copper Rule Compliance Issues” (Denver: AWWA

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47 Simoni Triantafyllidou and Marc Edwards, “Lead (Pb) in Tap Water and in Blood: Implications for Lead Exposure in the United States,”

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48 A cross-sectional study is an analysis of observed data collected from a population at a speciﬁc point in time.

49 Bruce P. Lanphear et al., “Environmental Exposures to Lead and Urban Children’s Blood Lead Levels,” Environmental Research 76, no. 2

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51 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Lead and Copper Rule Revisions White Paper” (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection

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52 Ibid.

53 An observational study is an analysis in which individuals are monitored or certain outcomes are measured. No attempt is made to

aect the outcome (for example, no treatment is given). Well-designed observational studies have been shown to provide results similar

to randomized controlled trials. Cohort and case-control studies are two primary types of observational studies that aid in evaluating

associations between diseases and exposures.

54 Mary Jean Brown et al., “Association Between Children’s Blood Lead Levels, Lead Service Lines, and Water Disinfection, Washington,

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55 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “SAB Evaluation of the Eectiveness of Partial Lead Service Line Replacements” (2011), https://

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56 Élise Deshommes et al., “Monitoring-Based Framework to Detect and Manage Lead Water Service Lines,” Journal of the American

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57 David A. Cornwell, Richard A. Brown, and Steve H. Via, “National Survey of Lead Service Line Occurrence,” Journal of the American Water

Works Association 108, no. 4 (2016): E187–92, http://dx.doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2016.108.0086; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

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58 Michael W. Shannon and John W. Graef, “Lead Intoxication in Infancy,” Pediatrics 89, no. 1 (1992): 87–90, http://pediatrics.

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59 County Health Rankings, “Our Ratings,” accessed May 5, 2017, http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/roadmaps/what-works-for-

health/our-ratings. Scientiﬁcally supported is deﬁned by County Health Rankings as interventions for which there are 1 or more

systematic review(s), or at least three experimental studies, or three quasi-experimental studies with matched concurrent comparisons.

Studies have strong designs and statistically signiﬁcant favorable ﬁndings, see http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/roadmaps/what-

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60 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment In Alaska,” accessed May 12,

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61 Cornwell et al., “National Survey of Lead Service Line Occurrence.”

62 U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Single Year of Age and Sex for the United

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63 Ibid.

64 Michèle Prévost and Élise Deshommes. “Calculation of Reference Water Levels for Lead Service Line Replacement Intervention,” http://

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65 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Proposed Modeling Approaches for a Health-Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water”

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site-speciﬁc data and biokinetic modeling.

66 Anne Sandvig et al., “Contribution of Service Line and Plumbing Fixtures to Lead and Copper Rule Compliance Issues” (Denver: AWWA

and EPA, 2008), https://archive.epa.gov/region03/dclead/web/pdf/91229.pdf.

67 Personal communication with Steve Via, “Informal Survey of Estimated Lead Service Line Replacement Costs,” unpublished dataset,

cited with permission, March 2017.

68 Pam Zekman, “2 Investigators: Cost of Replacing Lead Service Lines Is on Chicago Home Owners,” CBS Chicago, Dec. 8, 2016, http://

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69 Michael Hawthorne and Peter Matuszak, “As Other Cities Dig Up Pipes Made of Toxic Lead, Chicago Resists,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 21,

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70 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “How the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Works,” accessed March 21, 2017, https://www.

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71 Ronnie Levin et al., “Lead Exposures in U.S. Children, 2008: Implications for Prevention.”

72 David E. Jacobs, “Lead-Based Paint as a Major Source of Childhood Lead Poisoning: A Review of the Evidence,” in Lead in Paint, Soil

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73 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic Findings” (2011), http://

portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AHHS_Report.pdf.

74 Ibid.

75 40 CFR 745.223.

76 HUD, “American Healthy Homes Survey” (2011); David E. Jacobs et al., “Replacing Windows Reduces Childhood Lead Exposure: Results

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PHH.0000000000000389.

77 Caroline Alderson, “Technical Preservation Guidelines: Upgrading Historic Building Windows” (Washington: U.S. General Services

Administration, April 2009), https://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/Windows.pdf; Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, “The

National Historic Preservation Program: Overview,” accessed Feb. 17, 2017, http://www.achp.gov/overview.html.

78 David E. Jacobs, “Lead-Based Paint as a Major Source of Childhood Lead Poisoning”; Sherry Dixon et al., “Window Replacement

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410–19, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2007.09.003; Lead Safe Illinois, “CLEAR-WIN Comprehensive Lead Elimination and Reduction—

Through Window Replacement” (2010), http://www.leadsafeillinois.org/uploads/documents/CLEARWINfactsheet62010.pdf; Illinois

Department of Public Health, “Clear-Win Program: Pilot Phase Evaluation” (December 2014), http://www.dph.illinois.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/publications/publications-ohp-clear-winreport-042016.pdf.

79 Yona Amitai et al., “Residential Deleading: Eects on the Blood Lead Levels of Lead-Poisoned Children,” Pediatrics 88, no. 5 (1991):

893–97, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/88/5/893.

80 Walter J. Rogan et al., “The Eect of Chelation Therapy With Succimer on Neuropsychological Development in Children Exposed to

Lead,” The New England Journal of Medicine 344 (2001): 1421–26, http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200105103441902;Hilary Thomson

et al., “Housing Improvements for Health and Associated Socio-Economic Outcomes,” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2

(Feb. 28, 2013), https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008657.pub2; Barbara Nussbaumer-Streit et al., “Household Interventions

for Preventing Domestic Lead Exposure in Children (Review),” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 10 (2016): 2–3, http://dx.doi.

org/10.1002/14651858.CD006047.pub5.

81 Roberto Gwiazda, Carla Campbell, and Donald Smith, “A Noninvasive Isotopic Approach to Estimate the Bone Lead Contribution to

Blood in Children: Implications for Assessing the Efﬁcacy of Lead Abatement,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (2005):

104–10, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3435755.

82 P.S. Barry, “A Comparison of Concentrations of Lead in Human Tissues,” British Journal of Industrial Medicine 32, no. 2 (1975): 119–39,

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91 (1991): 33–37, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3430979; Howard Hu et al., “The Epidemiology of Lead Toxicity in Adults: Measuring

Dose and Consideration of Other Methodologic Issues,” Environmental Health Perspectives 115, no. 3 (2007): 455–62, https://dx.doi.

org/10.1289%2Fehp.9783; Pam Factor-Litvak et al., “The Yugoslavia Prospective Study of Environmental Lead Exposure,” Environmental

Health Perspectives 107, no. 1 (1999): 9–15, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3434284; Mary Jean Brown et al., “Determinants of Bone and

Blood Lead Concentrations in the Early Postpartum Period,” Occupational and Environmental Medicine 57, no. 8 (2000): 535–41, https://

dx.doi.org/10.1136%2Foem.57.8.535;Hung-Yi Chuang et al., “Interrelations of Lead Levels in Bone, Venous Blood, and Umbilical Cord

Blood With Exogenous Lead Exposure Through Maternal Plasma Lead in Peripartum Women,” Environmental Health Perspectives 109, no.

5 (2001): 527–32, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3454713; P.S. Barry, “Concentrations of Lead in the Tissues of Children,” British Journal of

Industrial Medicine 38, no. 1 (1981): 61–71, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27723491.

83 Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-550 (as amended through April 21, 2005), https://www.

hud.gov/oces/lead/library/lead/Title_X.pdf.

124

84 President’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, “Key Federal Programs to Reduce Childhood Lead

Exposures and Eliminate Associated Health Impacts” (November 2016), https://ptfceh.niehs.nih.gov/features/assets/ﬁles/key_federal_

programs_to_reduce_childhood_lead_exposures_and_eliminate_associated_health_impactspresidents_508.pdf.

85 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic Findings.”

86 Katherine A. Ahrens et al., “Housing Assistance and Blood Lead Levels: Children in the United States, 2005–2012,” American Journal of

Public Health 106, no. 11 (2016): 2049–56, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303432.

87 National Conference of State Legislatures, “Lead Hazards Project” (Washington: NCSL, Aug. 3, 2016), http://www.ncsl.org/research/

environment-and-natural-resources/lead-hazards-project.aspx.

88 Katrina S. Korfmacher and Michael L. Hanley, “Are Local Laws the Key to Ending Childhood Lead Poisoning?” Journal of Health Politics,

Policy and Law 38, no. 4 (2013): 757–813, http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/03616878-2208603.

89 Nimia L. Reyes et al., “Identifying Housing That Poisons: A Critical Step in Eliminating Childhood Lead Poisoning,” Journal of Public Health

Management and Practice 12, no. 6 (2006): 563–69, http://journals.lww.com/jphmp/Abstract/2006/11000/Identifying_Housing_

That_Poisons__A_Critical_Step.10.aspx; Dori B. Reissman et al., “Use of Geographic Information System Technology to Aid Health

Department Decision Making About Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Activities,” Environmental Health Perspectives 109, no. 1

(2001): 89–94, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3434926.

90 Chinaro Kennedy et al., “Primary Prevention of Lead Poisoning in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study to Evaluate State Speciﬁc

Lead-Based Paint Risk Reduction Laws in Preventing Lead Poisoning in Children,” Environmental Health 13 (2014): 93. http://dx.doi.

org/10.1186/1476-069X-13-93.

91 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic Findings” (2011), http://

portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AHHS_Report.pdf.

92 David E. Jacobs, “Lead-Based Paint as a Major Source of Childhood Lead Poisoning”; Sherry Dixon et al., “Window Replacement

and Residential Lead Paint Hazard Control 12 Years Later,” Environmental Research 113 (2012): 14–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.

envres.2012.01.005; David E. Jacobs et al., “Replacing Windows Reduces Childhood Lead Exposure: Results From a State-

Funded Program,” Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 22, no. 5 (2016): 482–91, https://doi.org/10.1097/

PHH.0000000000000389; Rick Nevin et al., “Monetary Beneﬁts of Preventing Childhood Lead Poisoning With Lead-Safe Window

Replacement,” Environmental Research 106, no. 3 (2008): 410–19, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2007.09.003; Lead Safe Illinois,

“CLEAR-WIN Comprehensive Lead Elimination and Reduction—Through Window Replacement” (2010), http://www.leadsafeillinois.

org/uploads/documents/CLEARWINfactsheet62010.pdf; Illinois Department of Public Health, “Clear-Win Program: Pilot Phase

Evaluation” (December 2014), http://www.dph.illinois.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/publications/publications-ohp-clear-winreport-042016.

pdf.

93 County Health Rankings, “Our Ratings.” Scientiﬁcally supported is deﬁned by County Health Rankings as interventions for which

there are one or more systematic review(s), or at least three experimental studies, or three quasi-experimental studies with matched

concurrent comparisons. Studies have strong designs and statistically signiﬁcant favorable ﬁndings.

94 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment in Alaska.”

95 Sherry Dixon et al., “Window Replacement and Residential Lead Paint Hazard Control 12 Years Later,” Environmental Research 113 (2012):

14–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2012.01.005.

96 Mark Farfel et al., “An Extended Study of Interim Lead Hazard Reduction Measures Employed in the Baltimore Clinical Center of the

Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children (TLC)—Clinical Trial” (Washington: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, April

2000), http://www.nmic.org/nyccelp/medical-studies/Farfel-extended-study-interim-controls-4-00.pdf; Farfel et al. 1997, “Lead Based

Paint Abatement and Repair and Maintenance Study” (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, December 1997), EPA-

747-R-97-005, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/documents/24folup. pdf. Several variables would aect the applicability of

this study to the prevention scenario. Techniques and standards may have improved since the study was conducted in 2008 and 2009,

so its data may underestimate the impact of lead hazard control undertaken today. Because the prevalence of contaminated dust in

older homes may have changed since these data were collected the team modeled two dierent baseline dust lead levels, 20 and 10 μg/

sq. ft.

97 Sherry L. Dixon et al., “Exposure of U.S. Children to Residential Dust Lead, 1999–2004: II. The Contribution of Lead-Contaminated Dust

to Children’s Blood Lead Levels,” Environmental Health Perspectives 117, no. 3 (2009): 468–74, https://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.11918.

98 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic Findings” (April 2011),

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AHHS_Report.pdf.

125

99 To determine the number of children born into a remediated home in the next 10 years, the team ﬁrst calculated the percent of the

housing stock that would receive the intervention by dividing the number of remediated homes by the total number of homes in the

U.S. as shown in the American Community Survey. The team then used this percentage as the likelihood that a future child would be

born into a remediated home. For example, for the pre-1960, lead hazard control intervention, the team estimated that 2.1 percent of the

housing stock would receive the intervention and therefore each future child would have a 2.1 percent chance of living in a remediated

home. The team then assumed conservatively that these eects would persist for the next 10 birth cohorts.

100 Mark Farfel et al., “An Extended Study of Interim Lead Hazard Reduction Measures Employed in the Baltimore Clinical Center of the

Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children (TLC)—Clinical Trial” (Washington: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, April

2000), http://www.nmic.org/nyccelp/medical-studies/Farfel-extended-study-interim-controls-4-00.pdf; Mark Farfel et al., “Lead

Based Paint Abatement and Repair and Maintenance Study in Baltimore: Findings Based on Two Years of Follow-Up” (Washington: U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency, December 1997), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/documents/24folup.pdf.

101 The maximum number children born in 2018 from low-income families expected to reside in pre-1960 housing is 321,000. A subset of

these children—311,000—are expected to reside in homes with lead-based paint.

102 The Pew Charitable Trusts, “Household Expenditures and Income: Balancing Family Finances in Today’s Economy” (March 2016), http://

www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2016/03/household-expenditures-and-income.

103 National Center for Healthy Housing, “Find It, Fix It, Fund It.”

104 Federal Housing Administration, “FHA Single Family Housing Policy Handbook” (Washington: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development, Aug. 27, 2014), https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=sfh_poli_appr_prop.pdf.

105 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Economic Analysis for the TSCA Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program Final Rule

for Target Housing and Child-Occupied Facilities, §402(c) (2008): 3 39–41, http://www.nchh.org/Portals/0/Contents/EPA-HQ-

OPPT-2005-0049-0916_Final_Economic_Analysis_3-08.pdf.

106 Michael Rabinowitz, Alan Leviton, and David Bellinger, “Home Reﬁnishing, Lead Paint and Infant Blood Lead Levels,” American Journal of

Public Health 75, no. 4 (1985): 403–04, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646251/pdf/amjph00280-0093.pdf.

107 Adam J. Spanier et al., “The Contribution of Housing Renovation to Children’s Blood Lead Levels: A Cohort Study,” Environmental Health

12, no. 1 (2013): 72, http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-12-72.

108 E.M. Franko et al., “Children With Elevated Blood Lead Levels Related to Home Renovation, Repair, and Painting Activities—New York

State, 2006-2007,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 58, no. 3 (2009): 55–58, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/

mm5803a3.htm; Rabinowitz, Leviton, and Bellinger, “Home Reﬁnishing, Lead Paint and Infant Blood Lead Levels.”

109 E.M. Franko et al., “Children With Elevated Blood Lead Levels.”

110 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, 40 CFR 745, Federal Register 73, no. 78 (2008):

21691–769, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-04-22/html/E8-8141.htm.

111 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Economic Analysis for the TSCA Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program Final Rule for

Target Housing and Child-Occupied Facilities, 3 39–41.

112 National Center for Healthy Housing, “New York’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program: Year 8 Grantee Impact

Summaries (Draft),” accessed Feb. 3, 2017, http://www.nchh.org/Portals/0/Contents/NYSDOH_Yr8_Appendix_Final.pdf; City of New

York, “Health Department Launches New Lead Dust Notiﬁcation Procedures,” accessed Feb. 3, 2017, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/

about/press/pr2015/pr021-15.page.

113 National Center for Healthy Housing, “New York’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program: Year 8 Grantee Impact

Summaries (draft),” accessed Feb. 3, 2017, http://www.nchh.org/Portals/0/Contents/NYSDOH_Yr8_Appendix_Final.pdf.

114 District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment, “All About Lead,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://doee.dc.gov/lead.

115 Rhode Island Department of Health, “Lead Safe Renovation, Repair, and Painting,” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.health.ri.gov/

healthrisks/poisoning/lead/about/renovationrepairandpainting.

116 Lead Safe Kids, “Working Lead-Safe in Providence: What Does This Mean for Me?” accessed Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.leadsafekids.org/

en/news/77-providence-rrp.

117 U.S. EPA, Economic Analysis for the TSCA Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program, 3-39–41; Spanier et al., “The Contribution of

Housing Renovation to Children’s Blood Lead Levels: A Cohort Study”; Rabinowitz, Leviton and Bellinger, “Home Reﬁnishing, Lead Paint

and Infant Blood Lead Levels”; Franko et al., “Children With Elevated Blood Lead Levels.”

118 County Health Rankings, “Our Ratings.” Scientiﬁcally supported is deﬁned by County Health Rankings as interventions for which

there are one or more systematic review(s), or at least three experimental studies, or three quasi-experimental studies with matched

concurrent comparisons. Studies have strong designs and statistically signiﬁcant favorable ﬁndings.

126

119 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment In Alaska.”

120 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Approach Used for Estimating Changes in Children’s IQ From Lead Dust Generated

During Renovation, Repair and Painting in Residences and Child-Occupied Facilities” (Washington: EPA, March 28, 2008), https://

www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2005-0049-0930; Richard W. Leggett, “An Age-Speciﬁc Kinetic Model of Lead

Metabolism in Humans,” Environmental Health Perspectives 101, no. 7 (1993): 598–616, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.93101598; U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency, “Revised Final Report on Characterization of Dust Lead Levels After Renovation, Repair, and Painting

Activities” (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Nov. 13, 2016), https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-

OPPT-2005-0049-0857.

121 U.S. EPA, Economic Analysis for the TSCA Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program, ES-4.

122 U.S. EPA, Economic Analysis for the TSCA Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program.

123 In its economic analysis, the EPA identiﬁed the cost of spot test kits as approximately $0.50 each, and assumed that testing four

samples would require about 15 minutes of a certiﬁed renovator’s time. Therefore, the estimated cost of using the kits would be $10 per

renovation event.

124 Franko et al., “Children With Elevated Blood Lead Levels.”

125 Environmental Protection Agency, “2014 National Emissions Inventory Data” (2014), https://www.epa.gov/air-emissions-

inventories/2014-national-emissions-inventory-nei-data.

126 Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, “National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Lead” (Jan. 8, 2015), https://www.epa.

gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-01/documents/naaqs_for_lead_letter.pdf.

127 Environmental Protection Agency, “Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Lead.”

128 Howard W. Mielke et al., “Environmental and Health Disparities in Residential Communities of New Orleans: The Need for Soil Lead

Intervention to Advance Primary Prevention,” Environment International 51 (2013) 73–81, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2012.10.013;

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “America’s Children and the Environment, Third Edition,” EPA 240-R-13-001 (Washington: U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency, January 2013): 61, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-06/documents/ace3_2013.pdf.

129 Environmental Protection Agency, “Results of Lead and Arsenic Testing at West Calumet Housing Complex (Excel spreadsheet),”

accessed May 10, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2016-08/uss-lead-zone-1-action-data-redacted.xlsx.

130 Michael D. Lewin, Sara Sarasua, and Paul A. Jones, “A Multivariate Linear Regression Model for Predicting Children’s Blood Lead Levels

Based on Soil Lead Levels: A Study at Four Superfund Sites,” Environmental Research 81, no. 1 (1999): 52–61, https://dx.doi.org/10.1006/

enrs.1998.3952; Sammy Zahran et al., “Linking Source and Eect: Resuspended Soil Lead, Air Lead, and Children’s Blood Lead Levels

in Detroit, Michigan,” Environmental Science and Technology 47, no. 6 (2013), http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es303854c;

Howard W. Mielke et al., “The Urban Environment and Children’s Health: Soils as an Integrator of Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium in New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA,” Environmental Research 81, no. 2 (1999): 117–19, https://dx.doi.org/10.1006/enrs.1999.3966; Mielke et al.,

“Environmental and Health Disparities in Residential Communities of New Orleans.”

131 Howard Mielke et al., “Nonlinear Association Between Soil Lead and Blood Lead of Children in Metropolitan New Orleans, Louisiana:

2000-2005,” Science of the Total Environment 388, no. 1–3 (2007): 43–53, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.08.012; Jerey

Shire and John Villanacci, “Analysis of Risk Factors for Childhood Blood Lead Levels El Paso, Texas, 1997–2002,” prepared by the Texas

Department of Health for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (April 20, 2004), https://www.dshs.texas.gov/epitox/

consults/elppasblpbgisﬁnal4_23.pdf.

132 Howard Mielke et al., “Nonlinear Association Between Soil Lead and Blood Lead of Children in Metropolitan New Orleans, Louisiana:

2000–2005,” Science of the Total Environment 388, no. 1–3 (2007): 43–53, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.08.012.

133 Mark Laidlaw et al., “Case Studies and Evidence-Based Approaches to Addressing Urban Soil Lead Contamination,” Applied Geochemistry

(2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2017.02.015.

134 Mielke et al., “Environmental and Health Disparities in New Orleans”; Michael Weitzman et al., “Lead-Contaminated Soil Abatement

and Urban Children's Blood Lead Levels,” JAMA 263, no. 13 (1993): 1647–54.

135 Katherine Farrell et al., “Soil Lead Abatement and Children’s Blood Lead Levels in an Urban Setting,” American Journal of Public Health 88,

no. 12 (1998): 1837–39, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.88.12.1837.

136 Mark Laidlaw et al., “Case Studies and Evidence-Based Approaches to Addressing Urban Soil Lead Contamination.”

137 Ibid.

138 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Secondary Lead Smelting, 77

Fed. Reg. 3 (Jan. 5, 2012), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-01-05/pdf/2011-32933.pdf#page=2.

127

139 EC/R Inc., memo prepared for EPA Oce of Air Quality Planning and Standards, “Risk and Technology Review—Final Analysis of Socio-

Economic Factors for Populations Living Near Secondary Lead Smelting Facilities,” December 2011, http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/Leadsmeltersocioeconomicanalysis.pdf.

140 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Secondary Lead Smelting, 77

Fed. Reg. 3; Jessica Garrison and Kim Christensen, “Vernon Plant Closed Over Toxins,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2013, http://articles.

latimes.com/2013/apr/25/local/la-me-exide-arsenic-20130425; Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, “Exide Frisco Batter

Recycling Center” (October 2014), https://www.tceq.texas.gov/remediation/sites/exide/exide; Amy Wold, “New Plan to Close Former

Exide Site Expected to Be Complete in Early 2016,” The Advocate, Jan. 5, 2016, http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_

e0375310-ed91-578d-9f77-aa3019a2efdd.html.

141 U.S. Geological Survey, “Historical Statistics for Mineral and Material Commodities in the United States” (2011), https://minerals.usgs.

gov/minerals/pubs/historical-statistics; International Lead Association, “Lead Industry Proﬁle,” accessed March 28, 2017, http://www.

ila-lead.org/UserFiles/File/factbook/chapter4.pdf.

142 William P. Eckel, Michael B. Rabinowitz and Gregory D. Foster, “Discovering Unrecognized Lead-Smelting Sites by Historical Methods,”

American Journal of Public Health 91, no. 4 (2001), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446633/pdf/11291377.pdf.

143 Ibid.

144 Sammy Zahran et al., “Linking Source and Eect: Resuspended Soil Lead, Air Lead, and Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Detroit,

Michigan,” Environmental Science and Technology 47, no. 6 (2013): 2839–45, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es303854c .

145 United States Environmental Protection Agency, Oce of Inspector General, “EPA Has Made Progress in Assessing Historical

Lead Smelter Sites but Needs to Strengthen Procedures” (June 2014), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-09/

documents/20140617-14-p-0302.pdf.

146 Environmental Protection Agency, “Superfund Remedial Annual Accomplishments: Fiscal Year 2016 Superfund Remedial

Program Accomplishments Report,” accessed May 10, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-remedial-annual-

accomplishments#metrics.

147 Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, “John T. Lewis Community Childhood Blood Lead Study: Findings,” accessed March

24, 2017, https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/jtlewis/ﬁndings.html.

148 Ian von Lindern et al., “Estimating Children’s Soil/Dust Ingestion Rates Through Retrospective Analyses of Blood Lead Biomonitoring

From the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in Idaho,” Environmental Health Perspectives 124, no. 9 (2016): 1462–70, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/

ehp.1510144.

149 Ian von Lindern et al., “Assessing Remedial Eectiveness Through the Blood Lead: Soil/Dust Lead Relationship at the Bunker Hill

Superfund Site in the Silver Valley of Idaho,” Science of the Total Environment 303 no. 1–2 (2003): 139–70, http://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-

9697(02)00352-2.

150 Michael D. Lewin, Sara Sarasua, and Paul A. Jones, “A Multivariate Linear Regression Model for Predicting Children’s Blood Lead Levels

Based on Soil Lead Levels.”

151 University of Maryland, “Lead in Garden Soils,” accessed June 7, 2017, https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/lead-garden-soils.

152 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Technical Review Workgroup Recommendations Regarding Gardening and Reducing Exposure

to Lead-Contaminated Soils” (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2014), http://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.

cgi?Dockey=P100JJS3.TXT.

153 County Health Rankings, “Our Ratings.” Some evidence is deﬁned by County Health Rankings and Roadmaps as: one or more systematic

review(s), or at least two experimental studies, or two quasi-experimental studies with matched concurrent comparisons, or three

studies with unmatched comparisons or pre-post measures. Studies have statistically signiﬁcant favorable ﬁndings. Compared with

“Scientiﬁcally Supported,” studies have less rigorous designs or limited eect(s). Although the removal of lead from aviation fuel has not

been tested, multiple studies have documented an association between blood lead levels and residence near an airport serving aircraft

using leaded fuel.

154 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment in Alaska.”

155 Unleaded AVGAS Transition Aviation Rulemaking Committee, “FAA UAT ARC Final Report Part I: Unleaded AVGAS Findings &

Recommendations” (Washington: Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Feb. 17, 2012), https://www.faa.

gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/committees/documents/media/Avgas.ARC.RR.2.17.12.pdf; Control of Air Pollution from Aircraft

and Aircraft Engines, Code of Federal Regulations, title 40, part 87 (2013); Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Lead Emissions

From Piston-Engine Aircraft Using Leaded Aviation Gasoline 75 Fed. Reg. 81 (April 28, 2010): 22439–68, https://www.federalregister.

gov/documents/2010/04/28/2010-9603/advance-notice-of-proposed-rulemaking-on-lead-emissions-from-piston-engine-aircraft-

using-leaded.

128

156 Sammy Zahran et al., “The Eect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline on Blood Lead in Children,” Journal of the Association of Environmental

and Resource Economists 4, no. 2 (2017): 575–610, http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/691686; “U.S. Product Supplied of Aviation

Gasoline,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 29, 2017, http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/Leafhandler.

ashx?n=PET&s=MGAUPUS1&f=A.

157 Ibid.

158 Proposed Rulemaking on Lead Emissions From Piston-Engine Aircraft, 75 Fed. Reg. 81 (April 28, 2010), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/

FR-2010-04-28/pdf/2010-9603.pdf.

159 Rebecca Kessler, “Sunset for Leaded Aviation Gasoline?” Environmental Health Perspectives 121, no. 2 (2013): 54–57, http://dx.doi.

org/10.1289/ehp.121-a54; Marie Lynn Miranda, Rebecca Anthopolos and Douglas Hastings, “A Geospatial Analysis of the Eects

of Aviation Gasoline on Childhood Blood Lead Levels,” Environmental Health Perspectives 119, no. 10 (2011): 1513–16, https://dx.doi.

org/10.1289%2Fehp.1003231; Zahran et al., “The Eect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline.”

160 Zahran et al., “The Eect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline.”

161 County Health Rankings, “Our Ratings.” Some evidence is deﬁned by County Health Rankings and Roadmaps as: one or more systematic

review(s), or at least two experimental studies, or two quasi-experimental studies with matched concurrent comparisons, or three

studies with unmatched comparisons or pre-post measures. Studies have statistically signiﬁcant favorable ﬁndings. Compared to

“Scientiﬁcally Supported,” studies have less rigorous designs or limited eect(s). Although the removal of lead from aviation fuel has not

been tested, multiple studies have documented an association between blood lead levels and residence near an airport serving aircraft

using leaded fuel.

162 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment in Alaska,” accessed May 12,

2017, http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/hia/Documents/AlaskaHIAToolkit.pdf.

163 Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, “Technical Guidance for Health Impact Assessment in Alaska,” accessed May 12,

2017, http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/hia/Documents/AlaskaHIAToolkit.pdf.

164 Proposed Rulemaking on Lead Emissions From Piston-Engine Aircraft, 75 Fed. Reg. 81; Advance notice of proposed rulemaking on lead

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167 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “Cultural Competence,” accessed April 20, 2017, https://www.samhsa.

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168 Greater Cincinnati Water Works, “Lead Awareness” (2007), http://cincinnati-oh.gov/water/lead-information/; DC Water, “Service Map,

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Practice 19, no. 1 (2013): E21–29, http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0b013e3182249523. This report uses the term “screening” to refer to

questionnaires only, while “testing” includes any sampling of blood. Methods for analyzing blood tests range in price, accuracy, sample

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177 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment,” accessed June 7, 2017,

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179 Jennifer Dickman, “Children at Risk: Gaps in State Lead Screening Policies” (Washington: Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, January

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180 Wengrovitz and Brown, “Recommendations for Blood Lead Screening of Medicaid-Eligible Children.”

181 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “CDC Recommendations for Lead Poisoning Prevention in Newly Arrived Refugee Children,”

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182 Diamond and Lee, “Interventions Shown to Aid Executive Function Development in Children 4 to 12 Years Old.”

183 Hirokazu Yoshikawa et al., “Investing in Our Future: The Evidence Base on Preschool Education” (Ann Arbor, MI: Society for Research in

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187 Harriet J. Kitzman et al., “Enduring Eects of Prenatal and Infancy Home Visiting by Nurses on Children,” Archive Pediatric Adolescent

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188 David Olds et al., “Long-Term Eects of Nurse Home Visitation on Children’s Criminal and Antisocial Behavior: 15-Year Follow-Up of

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191 Hugh F. Crean and Deborah B. Johnson, “Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) and Elementary School Aged Children's

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192 David J. Schonfeld et al., “Cluster-Randomized Trial Demonstrating Impact on Academic Achievement of Elementary Social-Emotional

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193 Karin S. Frey et al., “Reducing Playground Bullying and Supporting Beliefs: An Experimental Trial of the Steps to Respect Program,”

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194 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Educational Interventions for Children Aected by Lead,” 34.

195 Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities, “§ 300.111 Child Find,” Cornell University Law School, accessed April

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196 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Managing Elevated Blood Lead Levels Among Young Children: Recommendations

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casemanagement/managingEBLLs.pdf.

197 Betsy Lozo, “Iron Deﬁciency and Child Development,” Food and Nutrition Bulletin 28 (2007): S560–71, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/

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198 Stephen Billings and Kevin Schnepel,“Life Unleaded: Eects of Early Interventions for Children Exposed to Lead” (Working Paper

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199 U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, “Women, Infants and Children (WIC): WIC Food Package Regulatory

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200 Margot I. Jackson, “Early Childhood WIC Participation, Cognitive Development and Academic Achievement,” Social Science & Medicine

126 (2015): 145–53, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.018; Abigail Arons et al., “Participation in the Special Supplemental

Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Is Not Associated With Early Childhood Socioemotional Development: Results

From a Longitudinal Cohort Study,” Preventive Medicine Reports 4 (2016): 507–11, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2016.09.004;

Edward A. Frongillo, Diana F. Jyoti, and Sonya J. Jones, “Food Stamp Program Participation Is Associated With Better Academic Learning

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201 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, “Final Recommendation Statement: Lead Levels in Childhood and Pregnancy: Screening” (2006),

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/RecommendationStatementFinal/lead-levels-in-childhood-and-

pregnancy-screening. In 2006, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against universal blood lead testing for children at

average risk of exposure. This guidance was designed to avoid potential harms, including false-positive results, anxiety, inconvenience,

absenteeism from work and school, and ﬁnancial costs of repeated testing. However, the recommendations did not address testing for

high-risk children.

202 Anne Guthrie Wengrovitz et al., “Overcoming Barriers to Data-Sharing Related to the HIPAA Privacy Rule” (Washington: Alliance for

Healthy Homes, June 2004), https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/policy/HIPAADoc.pdf.

203 Katarzyna Kordas, “The ‘Lead Diet’: Can Dietary Approaches Prevent or Treat Lead Exposure?” Journal of Pediatrics, in print (2017),

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2017.01.069.

204 Health Canada, “Lead in Drinking Water” (Health Canada, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Drinking Water, October

2016), http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-system-systeme-sante/consultations/lead-drinking-water-plomb-eau-potable/alt/

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205 Dr. Pascal Haeﬂiger, “Brief Guide to Analytical Methods for Measuring Lead in Blood,” World Health Organization (2011), http://www.

who.int/ipcs/assessment/public_health/lead_blood.pdf; The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deﬁnes a blood lead

test as “any blood lead draw (capillary, venous or unknown sample type) on a child that produces a quantiﬁable result and is analyzed

by a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certiﬁed facility or an approved portable device. A blood lead test may be

collected for screening, conﬁrmation, or follow-up.”

206 Reuben et al., “Association of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Cognitive Function and Socioeconomic Status at Age 38 Years and

With IQ Change and Socioeconomic Mobility Between Childhood and Adulthood.”

207 40 CFR 745.223.

208 Miriam King, Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Sarah Flood, Katie Genadek, Matthew B. Schroeder, Brandon Trampe, and Rebecca

Vick. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey: Version 3.0. [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis, MN:

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209 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Environmental Health, “National Surveillance Data (1997–2015)”

(Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016), https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/data/national.htm.

210 John Paul Wright et al., “Association of Prenatal and Childhood Blood Lead Concentrations With Criminal Arrests in Early Adulthood,”

PLoS Medicine 5, no. 5 (2008): e101, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050101.

211 Leonardo Trasande and Yinghua Liu, "Reducing the Staggering Costs of Environmental Disease in Children, Estimated at $76.6 Billion in

2008," Health Aairs 30, no. 5 (2011): 863–70, http://content.healthaairs.org/content/30/5/863.short.

212 P.J. Neumann, J.T. Cohen, and M.C. Weinstein, “Updating Cost-Eectiveness—The Curious Resilience of the $50,000-per-QALY

Threshold,” New England Journal of Medicine 371, no. 9 (2014): 796–97.

213 G.D. Sanders et al., “Recommendations for Conduct, Methodological Practices, and Reporting of Cost-Eectiveness Analyses,” JAMA

316, no. 10 (2016): 1093–1103; W. Max, “Present Value of Lifetime Earnings, 2007,” unpublished tables, Institute for Health and Aging,

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214 Council on Environmental Health, “Prevention of Childhood Lead Toxicity,” Pediatrics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1493.

215 Elise Gould, “Childhood Lead Poisoning: Conservative Estimates of the Social and Economic Beneﬁts of Lead Hazard Control,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 117, no. 7 (2009): 1162–67, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0800408.

216 Ibid.; Altarum Institute, “Health Sector Economic Indicators—Price Briefs,” available at http://altarum.org/our-work/cshs-health-sector-

economic-indicators-briefs.

217 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics,

Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2015 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released 2016. Data are compiled from the 57 vital statistics

jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program, accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html. Data for 2015 are

compiled from the Multiple Cause of Death File 2015, Series 20, No. 2U, 2016.

218 Yutaka Aoki et al., “Blood Lead and Other Metal Biomarkers as Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease Mortality,” Medicine 95, no. 1

(2016): e2223, http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000002223.

219 Ibid.

220 Dariush Mozaarian et al., “Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2015 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association,”

Circulation 131 (2015): e29–322, http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000152.

221 Martin et al., “Association of Blood Lead and Tibia Lead With Blood Pressure and Hypertension in a Community Sample of Older Adults,”

American Journal of Epidemiology 163, no. 5 (2006): 467–78, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwj060.

222 Guijing Wang et al., “Hypertension-Associated Expenditures for Medication Among U.S. Adults,” American Journal of Hypertension 26,

no. 11 (2013): 1295–1302, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajh/hpt079.

223 Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: an International Pooled Analysis,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 7 (2005): 894–99, https://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200307313490515; Todd Jusko et al.,

“Blood Lead Concentrations < 10 μg/dL and Child Intelligence at 6 Years of Age,” Environmental Health Perspectives 166 (2008): 243–48.

224 Jusko et al., “Blood Lead Concentrations”; Richard L. Canﬁeld et al., “Intellectual Impairment in Children With Blood Lead Concentrations

below 10 μg per Deciliter,” New England Journal of Medicine 348 (2003): 1517–26, http:/dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa022848; David

Bellinger and Herbert Needleman, “Intellectual Impairment And Blood Lead Levels,” New England Journal of Medicine 349 (2003):

500–02, https://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200307313490515; Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure And

Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 7 (2005): 894–99, https://

dx.doi.org/10.1289%2Fehp.7688.

225 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Lead, 73 Fed. Reg. 219 (Nov. 12, 2008): 66964.

226 European Food Safety Authority, “Scientiﬁc Opinion on Lead in Food: EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM),” EFSA

Journal 8, no. 4 (2010): 1570, http://dx.doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1570.

227 David S. Salkever, “Assessing the IQ-Earnings Link in Environmental Lead Impacts on Children: Have Hazard Eects Been Overstated?,”

Environmental Research 131 (2014): 219–30, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2014.03.018.

228 Ibid.

229 Randall Lutter, “Valuing Children’s Health: A Reassessment of the Beneﬁts of Lower Lead Levels,” Working Paper 00-02 (AEI-Brookings

Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2000), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=243537.

230 Dajun Lin, Randall Lutter, and Christopher J. Ruhm, “Cognitive Performance and Labor Market Outcomes,” Working Paper 22470 (NBER,

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869–95, http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/262045.

231 Scott Grosse, “How Much Does IQ Raise Earnings? Implications for Regulatory Impact Analyses,” Research Letter, Association of

Environmental and Resource Economics, 27, no. 2 (2007). http://www.umsl.edu/~kosnikl/AERE%20Essay.pdf.

232 Ted Gayer and Robert W. Hahn, “Designing Environmental Policy: Lessons From the Regulation of Mercury Emissions,” Journal

of Regulatory Economics 30 (2006): 291–315, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11149-006-9005-9; Lin, Lutter and Ruhm, “Cognitive

Performance.”

233 J. Schwartz, “Societal Beneﬁts of Reducing Lead Exposure,” Environmental Research 66 (1994): 105–24, https://dx.doi.org/10.1006/

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234 Jay G. Chambers, Thomas B. Parish, and Jenifer J. Harr, “What Are We Spending on Special Education Services in the United States,

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235 David A. Cornwell, “National Survey of Lead Service Line Occurrence,” American Water Works Association 108, no. 4 (2016), http://dx.doi.

org/10.5942/jawwa.2016.108.0086.

236 David A. Cornwell, Richard A. Brown and Steven Via, “National Survey of Lead Service Line Occurrence,” Journal of the American Water

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237 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Proposed Modeling Approaches for a Health-Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water”

(2017), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2017-01/documents/report_proposed_modeling_approaches_for_a_health_based_

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238 Bruce P. Lanphear et al., “Environmental Exposures to Lead and Urban Children’s Blood Lead Levels,” Environmental Research 76 no.

2 (1998): 120–30, https://dx.doi.org/10.1006/enrs.1997.3801; Bruce P. Lanphear et al., “Environmental Lead Exposure During Early

Childhood,” Journal of Pediatrics 140, no. 1 (2002): 40–47, http://dx.doi.org/10.1067/mpd.2002.120513; Bruce P. Lanphear et al., “Low-

Level Environmental Lead Exposure And Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis.”

239 Gerard Ngueta et al., “Use of a Cumulative Exposure Index to Estimate the Impact of Tap Water Lead Concentration on Blood

Lead Levels in 1- to 5-Year-Old Children (Montreal, Canada),” Environmental Health Perspectives 124 (2016): 388–95; http://dx.doi.

org/10.1289/ehp.1409144.

240 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Proposed Modeling Approaches for a Health-Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water.”

241 Michèle Prévost and Élise Deshommes. “Calculation of Reference Water Levels for Lead Service Line Replacement Intervention”;

S. Triantafyllidou et al., "Low Contribution of Pb02-Coated Lead Service Lines to Water Lead Contamination at the Tap."

242 U.S. Census Bureau, “American Community Survey,” U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Oce (2006), http://

factﬁnder2.census.gov.

243 Anne Sandvig et al., “Contribution of Service Line and Plumbing Fixtures to Lead and Copper Rule Compliance Issues” (Denver: AWWA

and EPA, 2008), https://archive.epa.gov/region03/dclead/web/pdf/91229.pdf.

244 Personal communication with Steve Via, “Informal Survey of Estimated Lead Service Line Replacement Costs,” unpublished dataset,

cited with permission, March 2017.

245 Sherry Dixon et al., “Window Replacement and Residential Lead Paint Hazard Control 12 Years Later,” Environmental Research 113 (2012):

14–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2012.01.005.

246 Mark Farfel et al., “An Extended Study of Interim Lead Hazard Reduction Measures Employed in the Baltimore Clinical Center of the

Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children (TLC)—Clinical Trial” (Washington: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, April

2000), http://www.nmic.org/nyccelp/medical-studies/Farfel-extended-study-interim-controls-4-00.pdf; Farfel et al. 1997, “Lead Based

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247 Sherry L. Dixon et al., “Exposure of U.S. Children to Residential Dust Lead, 1999–2004: II. The Contribution of Lead-Contaminated Dust

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248 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “American Healthy Homes Survey: Lead and Arsenic Findings” (Washington:

HUD, 2011), http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AHHS_Report.pdf; An alternative to this approach would

have been to use the percent of homes with lead-based paint hazards, deﬁned as signiﬁcantly deteriorated lead-based paint, or

dust or soil lead levels in excess of EPA standards, which is a subset of those with lead-based paint: The AHHS estimates that 52.5

percent of pre-1960 homes and 33.7 percent of pre-1978 homes have hazards. The study team chose to lead-based paint rather than

hazards for several reasons. First, homes with lead paint could develop hazards at any time if the paint deteriorates or is damaged.

Second, the AHHS deﬁnition of a lead-based paint hazard would exclude many units that by today’s standards would be considered

dangerous. For example, a home with a ﬂoor dust lead level under 40 μg/sq ft would not constitute a hazard under the survey, but

would far exceed HUD’s recently adopted ﬂoor dust standard of 10 μg/sq ft for grantees of the department’s lead paint hazard control

program. This variation in standards could result in an underestimation of high-risk units if only homes with hazards were considered.

Finally, by focusing on low-income older housing, which evidence suggests is in poorer condition than other homes, the models and

recommendations probably already isolated the units with the greatest likelihood of risk.

249 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Approach Used for Estimating Changes in Children’s IQ From Lead Dust Generated

During Renovation, Repair and Painting in Residences and Child-Occupied Facilities” (Washington: EPA, March 28, 2008), https://

www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2005-0049-0930; Richard W. Leggett, “An Age-Speciﬁc Kinetic Model of Lead

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250 Sammy Zahran et al., “The Eect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline on Blood Lead in Children,” Journal of the Association of Environmental and

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251 Philip J. Wolfe et al., “Costs of IQ Loss From Leaded Aviation Gasoline Emissions,” Environmental Science and Technology 50 (2016):

9026–33, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b02910; Sammy Zahran et al., “The Eect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline on Blood Lead in

Children.”

252 Lynn A. Karolyn, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jill Cannon, “Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise” (Santa Monica,

CA: RAND Corp., 2005), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG341.pdf.

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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 45 (2016): 1–7, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2016.02.002.

257 Sherry Dixon et al., “Window Replacement and Residential Lead Paint Hazard Control 12 Years Later,” Environmental Research 113 (2012):

14–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2012.01.005.

258 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Revised Final Report on Characterization of Dust Lead Levels After Renovation, Repair,

and Painting Activities” (Washington: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Nov. 13, 2016), https://www.regulations.gov/

document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2005-0049-0857.

259 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Air Quality Criteria for Lead: Volume I of II [EPA Report, EPA/600/R-05/144aF]” (2006), http://

cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/CFM/recordisplay.cfm?deid=158823.

260 Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: an International Pooled Analysis,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 7 (2005): 894–99, https://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.7688; David Bellinger, email to Jee-Young

Kim, Feb. 13, 2008; Richard Canﬁeld, email to Jee-Young Kim, Aug. 12, 2008; Richard Hornung, email to Jee-Young Kim, Aug. 19, 2008;

Martha Tellez-Rojo, email to Jee-Young Kim, Feb. 11, 2008.

261 David Bellinger, email to Jee-Young Kim, Feb. 13, 2008.

262 Ibid.; Richard Hornung, email to Jee-Young Kim, Aug. 19, 2008; Richard Canﬁeld et al., “Intellectual Impairment in Children With Blood

Lead Concentrations Below 10 μg per Deciliter,” The New England Journal of Medicine 348 (2003): 1517–26, http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/

NEJMoa022848.

263 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Lead, 73 Fed. Reg. 219 (Nov. 12, 2008): 66964; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

“Beneﬁt and Cost Analysis for the Euent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source

Category” (2015), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ﬁles/2015-10/documents/steam-electric_beneﬁt-cost-analysis_09-29-2015.

pdf; Elise Gould, “Childhood Lead Poisoning: Conservative Estimates of the Social and Economic Beneﬁts of Lead Hazard Control,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 117, no. 7 (2009): 1162–67, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0800408; Leonardo Trasande and Yinghua

Liu, "Reducing the Staggering Costs of Environmental Disease in Children, Estimated at $76.6 Billion in 2008," Health Aairs 30, no. 5

(2011): 863–70, http://content.healthaairs.org/content/30/5/863.short.

264 Bruce Lanphear et al., “Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: an International Pooled Analysis,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 7 (2005): 894–99, https://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200307313490515.

265 K.S. Crump et al., “A Statistical Reevaluation of the Data Used in the Lanphear et al. (2005) Pooled Analysis That Related Low Levels of

Blood Lead to Intellectual Deﬁcits In Children,” Critical Reviews in Toxicology 43 (2013): 785–99.

266 Scott Grosse, “How Much Does IQ Raise Earnings? Implications for Regulatory Impact Analyses,” Research Letter, Association of

Environmental and Resource Economics 27, no. 2 (2007), http://www.umsl.edu/~kosnikl/AERE%20Essay.pdf; Ted Gayer and Robert W.

Hahn, “Designing Environmental Policy: Lessons From the Regulation of Mercury Emissions,” Journal of Regulatory Economics 30 (2006):

291–315, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11149-006-9005-9; Lin, Lutter and Ruhm, “Cognitive Performance.”

267 Leonardo Trasande and Yinghua Liu, "Reducing the Staggering Costs of Environmental Disease in Children, Estimated at $76.6 Billion in

2008," Health Aairs 30, no. 5 (2011): 863–70, http://content.healthaairs.org/content/30/5/863.short; See economic assumptions

and methods in Social Security Administration, “The 2016 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of The Federal Old-Age and Survivors

Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds” (2016), https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2016/tr2016.pdf.

268 Philip J. Wolfe et al., “Costs of IQ Loss From Leaded Aviation Gasoline Emissions,” Environmental Science and Technology 50 (2016):

9026–33, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b02910.

134

269 Elise Gould, “Childhood Lead Poisoning: Conservative Estimates of the Social and Economic Beneﬁts of Lead Hazard Control,”

Environmental Health Perspectives 117, no. 7 (2009): 1162–67, http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0800408; Leonardo Trasande and Yinghua

Liu, "Reducing the Staggering Costs of Environmental Disease in Children, Estimated at $76.6 Billion in 2008," Health Aairs 30, no. 5

(2011): 863–70, http://content.healthaairs.org/content/30/5/863.short.

270 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Table 1.10. Gross Domestic Income by Type of Income,” accessed April 13, 2017, https://www.bea.

gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1#reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&903=51.

271 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Mortality Risk Valuation,” https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-

valuation.

272 See, for example, the discussion of discount rates in N.H. Stern & Great Britain, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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