Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition

Healthy Indoors 19 250 children. Filled with old dwellings, it has one of the highest poverty rates in town. Dr. Luis Galup, a pathologist and the county health officer, said funds to tackle the problem in South Bend have dwindled. "We are the lowest of the low in terms of public health funding," he said. Mayor Pete Buttigieg said the evidence that poisoning is widespread in parts of South Bend could cause public health administrators to seek more state funds or reallocate resources. "He's got a lot of energy." Victoria Mar- shall, pleased her son Edward's health is improv- ing but worried he may have ADHD "It's an eye-opener," he said of the Reuters study. "As a community with lots of low income residents and lots of old housing, we're vulnera- ble ... The county health department does every- thing they can just to keep up with child immuni- zations and restaurant inspections." The county, with around 265,000 residents, has two nurses and one environmental inspec- tor tasked with lead poisoning prevention. Thin- ly spread, they conduct home inspections only when a child's lead levels reach double the CDC's elevated threshold. Finding those children is getting harder. Housing and Urban Development grants that paid for South Bend lead testing ended in May. For years, the local Women, Infants and Children program, or "We are the lowest of the low in terms of public health funding." Dr. Luis Galup, health officer for St. Joseph County in South Bend, Indiana Cleveland has similar problems. In the city's east side St. Clair-Superior area, nearly half of kids tested in the last decade had elevated lead. The state health department refused to provide census tract testing data; the news agency ob- tained the information from the CDC. "Cleveland is my home, so it's deeply per- sonal every time we see new numbers on lead exposure in our neighborhoods," said U.S. Sen- ator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Brown has pressed federal and state agencies to increase childhood blood testing rates and fund more lead abate- ment efforts. Pennsylvania has a dubious distinction. The state contains the most individual census tracts—1,100 in all—where at least 10 percent of childhood lead tests were elevated over the last decade. In 49 different tracts, from inner city Phil- adelphia to capital Harrisburg, at least 40 percent of children tested had high lead. Those figures are disturbing—but not surpris- ing—to health officials in the state. "I believe that," said Dr. Loren Robinson, Pennsylvania's deputy secretary for health pro- motion and disease prevention. "Beyond the his- tory of industry, our state has some of the oldest homes in the country." The state's health department has partnered with schools, daycare centers and nonprofits to remove lead from properties, and is working on drafting new municipal codes to ensure rental properties are free of lead hazards, Robinson said. 'Funding Dried Up' Even in some of the highest risk areas around the country, many small children go untested for lead, Reuters reported in June. The gaps make tracking poisoned children more daunting. In South Bend, Indiana, where health officials face a cash crunch, lead testing is in sharp decline even as existing data points to a serious problem. In one tract there, 31 percent of small children tested from 2005 to 2015 had high levels—more than six times Flint's rate last year. The area, 1.5 miles southwest of the University of Notre Dame's idyllic college campus, is home to about ONCE HOSPITALIZED: Edward Brown Jr., once stricken with lead poisoning so severe he was hospitalized, feeds his sister Jewel, 1, at their home in South Bend, Indiana. His mother, Victoria Marshall, said Edward's health has improved but she remains worried about lead's lasting impact. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

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