Ending Childhood Lead Poisoning - Understanding Health through Community, Environment, and Policy

Panel Discussion

Wednesday April 6, 2011

UC Center Sacramento, Suite LL2 1130 K Street Sacramento, CA 95814

4pm-6pm with light refreshments.

Like many other environmental health issues, understanding childhood lead exposure involves land use history, politics, and the global economy. In a panel on childhood lead poisoning, we aim to synthesize the science behind lead’s distribution in the environment, the individual and societal implications of lead exposure in childhood, and barriers and opportunities to reducing lead exposure rates in the future.

Lead poisoning continues to be a health threat despite efforts by the public health community to eliminate childhood lead poisoning by the year 2010. The removal of lead from consumer products, such as paint and gasoline, resulted in dramatic declines in the average blood lead levels of children. However, lead persists in the environment and is present in older homes and the surrounding soils. In addition, the burden of elevated blood lead levels is not equally distributed. Some urban communities demonstrate lead poisoning levels of 15-20% while the national average is below 2%.

Three panelists will discuss policy, science and community action on lead poisoning. The panel is free to all and will include lots of opportunities for audience participation.

Ms. Linda Kite - the Executive Director of the Healthy Homes Collaborative in Los Angeles.  She has extensive experience in community organizing and citizen science related to soil lead levels, lead poisoning prevention, and soil remediation.  She is involved in many citizen science projects. 

Dr. Bruce P. Lanphear – is the director of the Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Center located at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He is a member of the U.S. EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Lead Review Panel and a Member of the National Children's Study Steering Committee. Dr. Lanphear is currently principal investigator for a study examining fetal and early childhood exposures to prevalent environmental neurotoxins including lead, pesticides, mercury, alcohol, PCB's and environmental tobacco smoke.

Dr. Howard Mielke – is a Professor at the Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research.  His is a leading expert on environmental justice and heavy metal exposure.  His work includes recent papers estimating the contribution of leaded gasoline to urban soil lead loads in cities across California and the U.S. Dr. Mielke’s published studies implicating leaded gasoline as a contributor to soil lead levels directly influenced environmental policies and laws in Michigan, Louisiana, Canada, Norway, the European Union, Mexico and Peru. 

The panel discussion is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Affairs, Environmental Justice Project, John Muir Institute of the Environment, Center for Regional Change, Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior, and Cadenasso Lab for Urban Ecosystems.