Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Web Page Launched

The Public Health Council recently launched a new web page with childhood lead poisoning prevention resources. The page contains information for parents, caregivers, property owners, and landlords. It provides links to the best state, regional, and national resources to learn about childhood lead poisoning prevention.

Lead poisoning is entirely preventable. However, nearly 1 million children living in the United States have blood levels high enough to impair their ability to think, learn, and concentrate. In 2019, 10 children (0 − 72 months old) in the Upper Valley Region of New Hampshire were identified with elevated blood lead levels of 5 ug/dL or higher.

The Public Health Council has conducted childhood lead poisoning prevention in the Upper Valley since September 2019. Then, we hosted an educational session with over 25 local partners. Our efforts are supported by a grant from the NH Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

Upper Valley Goals

One of our goals has been to expand training and certification opportunities for local homeowners, contractors, landlords, property managers and town building inspectors on lead-safe practices. We trained nearly 30 people in the EPA’s Renovate, Repair, and Paint program. Training was provided by Lead-Edu. We are pleased that online training opportunities will continue to be available to people in our region. Contact Lead-Edu to learn more about their training calendar and programs.

Our second goal was to collaborate with the Mascoma Valley Regional School District (MVRSD). We planned to provide education to the community and school personnel, promote lead screening, and adopt school policy to make identifying children with lead exposure easier. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s impact on our local schools made this a significant challenge at this time. Instead, we shifted gears to provide more community education about childhood lead poisoning prevention

Mascoma Bank sponsored a bank statement stuffer in March 2021 that went out in over 40,000 bank statements. In April, we launched a new website to provide resources and information to community members. Throughout the past 18 months, we have created strong relationships with individuals and organizations interested in continuing to address this complex problem. We expect to pursue additional funding with some of these partners to support more work to protect our region’s vulnerable children.

Please reach out to Alice Ely (alice.ely@uvpublichealth.org) at the Public Health Council is you are interested in joining our Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Working Group.