BEN HASTY - READING EAGLE,
BEN HASTY - READING EAGLE,
Courtesy of Dr. Robert C. Ziegenfus
BEN HASTY - READING EAGLE,
Every year about 500 young children in Berks County are poisoned by lead exposure, a new report says. That’s equal to 27 preschool classrooms, says anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania.
Berks County District Attorney John Adams joined other local leaders Tuesday to release the report from the anti-crime group calling for increased efforts to address lead hazards. The report documents how lead exposure in childhood can lead to future learning disabilities, behavior issues and problems with impulse control, which can lead to crime in adulthood.
“The research is clear: Childhood lead poisoning contributes to behaviors that can make it more likely for a young person to become involved in crime later in life,” said Adams. “Unlike many issues, this is an easy problem to solve. Testing for lead exposure and remediating homes will keep Pennsylvania children healthier, safer, and put them on the right path – for years to come.”
The national anti-crime organization is made up of police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, attorneys general and violence survivors, with more than 200 members in Pennsylvania and over 5,000 members nationwide.
The main culprit for childhood lead poisoning in Reading and Berks is old housing, specifically houses built before 1978 when lead paint was banned, the experts said.
In another study, the highest percentage of children in Reading with elevated blood-lead levels are reported in census tracts in downtown Reading along Penn Street between Eighth and 11th streets and north of Perkiomen Avenue, according to maps developed by Dr. Robert Ziegenfus using unpublished data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Ziegenfus has been studying blood levels for about a decade. The study was published in the journal Pennsylvania Geographer. It is his fourth paper in a series that investigates children’s blood-lead levels in Pennsylvania.
Officials are concerned the situation may be worse: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, testing for lead exposure decreased by 34% between January and May of 2020. This reduction in testing caused an estimated 9,600 children nationally with elevated lead levels to be missed, and to not receive the treatment.
Lead poisoning is 100% preventable, and no lead level is safe, they said.
Officials said one of the barriers to preventing lead poisoning is funding. The city missed out on a $3.4 million Housing and Development grant last year. It expects to be a sub-recipient of a Pennsylvania Department of Health grant, said Jamal Abodalo, director of community development services. It has not been awarded the grant yet.
Maggi Barton, deputy press secretary of the state Department of Health, said the department has been in contact with the city “to consider potential partnership opportunities to complete lead hazard control and Healthy Homes improvements in approximately 10 homes during the grant period.” The period for the Housing and Urban Development period lasts until 2024. No funding has been approved or awarded to the city at this time, she said.
Right now no one city government is trained to administer a contractor retained for testing or lead remediation. Two staff members are receiving training “as recommended by HUD and EPA to administer contractor retained for testing and/or remediation.”
“It is the City’s intent to develop a competent staff to combat lead poisoning in residential houses,” said city communications director Christian Crespo in an email response to the Reading Eagle.
Abodalo noted that the age of the housing stock available to low-income families greatly impacts low-income families trying to escape lead poisoning. He said the city is trying to establish a program to temporarily house low-income families while remediation efforts occur.
“We take these threats to our children’s health and well-being very seriously,” said Abodalo. “We are actively working to leverage all available resources to evaluate and remediate the risks of lead exposure for our families, but the need often outpaces the resources available.”
The report contended that for every dollar spent on removing lead paint-based hazards in children’s homes and apartments, $17 to $221 would be returned in health benefits, increased IQ, higher lifetime earnings, tax revenue, reduced spending on special education and reduced criminal activity. The report estimates that for every dollar spent on removing lead paint-based hazards results in a return of $3 in the form of avoided health care costs and loss of lifetime earnings.
The report cites research showing the total cost of the lifetime economic burden of childhood lead exposure in Pennsylvania is $3.1 billion. This number was calculated for the 2019 birth cohort, and includes the costs of increased health care, increased spending on education, reduced lifetime productivity and premature mortality.
Additionally, the direct cost of crime due to lead exposure nationally is estimated to be more than $1.7 billion.
Berks County Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt said the county expects to receive $82 million of American Rescue Plan money. It received about half of the money about two weeks ago.
He said lead remediation is a permitted use of the money and said the county would support lead remediation efforts. He did not say how much money would be committed to those efforts.
Steve Doster, state director for Council for A Strong America, emphasized that pledges to use American Rescue Plan funds are welcomed, but the organization is seeking long-term funding through the state to deal with the long-term nature of the problem.
The panel Tuesday stressed the importance of lead testing for more of Pennsylvania’s children and the need for state resources to help remediate lead hazards in homes.
The report cites studies that connect childhood lead exposure to problems with impulse control, which is a contributing factor to criminal behavior.
For example, a study linked preschool blood-lead levels with data on detention rates for 120,000 children born in Rhode Island between 1990 and 2004. The researchers found that as lead levels increased, so did rates of suspension from school and juvenile incarceration.
Additionally, another long-term study of the relationship between lead exposure and crime found that populations that had lead in their drinking water had higher homicide rates after 20 years, compared to areas where lead was not present in drinking water.
According to a fact sheet developed by a new statewide coalition, the Lead-Free Promise Project, Berks County has the third-highest number of children with lead poisoning among all of Pennsylvania’s counties.
The actual number of children suffering from lead poisoning is likely higher because in the county only about 19% of all children are screened for lead.
Kathryn Behm, a registered nurse and program manager with the Berks County Nurse-Family Partnership, spoke about the importance of home visits to assess the risk of lead exposure among her clients.
“Many of our client families are living in older housing which carries a higher risk of lead exposure,” said Behm. “Being able to assess firsthand the potential risk and working with the family to reduce exposure and remediate the source are critical components in this fight against lead poisoning.”
Panel participants noted that despite efforts in the 1970s through the 1990s to eliminate lead in the production of gasoline, paint and plumbing fixtures, the risk of lead exposure still persists – particularly in older homes.
Pennsylvania ranks fifth in the country for old housing, which is likely to have remaining lead-based paint. In Berks County, 65% of residential properties were built before 1980, before lead paint was banned for residential use.
In Reading, according to the study by Ziegenfus, 91.6% of housing was built before lead paint was banned.
Black and Hispanic children are disproportionately poisoned because they are more likely to live in older properties with deteriorated lead-based paint.
In Berks County, two times more Black children and 3.5 times more Hispanic children are poisoned than white children. In Ziegenfus’ study, the background of children was designated “unknown” in state health data, showing a lack of specificity at the time when blood samples are taken.
Bruce Clash, Pennsylvania director for Fight Crime: Invest In Kids, noted that progress is being made through federal Housing and Urban Development funding to evaluate homes in high-need areas, but reemphasized that much more must be done to protect Pennsylvania’s children from the harmful effects of lead.
“Pennsylvania must invest in greater testing and lead remediation practices now to protect our children not only from lead exposure, but also from potential future crime,” Clash said.