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EPA Lead Program Grant Fact Sheet
EPA's National Community-Based Lead Grant Program
The National Community-Based Lead Outreach and Training Grants promote efforts to prevent or reduce childhood lead poisoning. In 2008, the Agency awarded nearly $2 million in grant dollars to fund this ambitious program. These grants will fund local efforts to reduce the incidence of childhood lead poisoning in communities with older housing, including community outreach efforts, training and local ordinance development projects. Grant recipients range from city health departments to universities and colleges, community organizations, religious groups, and other non-profit organizations.
EPA's lead program is playing a major role in meeting the Federal goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning as a major public health concern by 2010, and the projects supported by these grant funds are an important part of this ongoing effort. According to the Centers for Disease Control in 1978 there were 13.5 million children in the US with elevated blood lead levels. By 2002, that number had dropped to 310,000.
For more information about EPA's Lead Program, visit www.epa.gov/lead or call 1-800-424-LEAD.
Baltimore City Health Department
EPA has selected the Baltimore City Health Department for a National Community-Based Lead Outreach and Training Grant. The Baltimore City Health Department will partner with CONNOR, a national Baltimore-based environmental health firm, to target populations that have not been reached by previous lead programs: low-income homeowners, low-income rental property owners, day laborers, Spanish-speaking families, and high school students studying construction.
With collaboration from a variety of community organizations, government agencies, and nonprofits, the Healthy Homes Division of the Baltimore City Health Department will increase the use of lead-safe work practices, heighten awareness of lead risks, and evaluate local regulatory options to prevent lead poisoning in Baltimore. Efforts will reach more than 3,500 community members through trainings on lead-safe work practices, a promotores program serving the Latino community, a lead-safe work practices video and Web site, and a strategic roundtable on regulatory change. Improved lead-safe work practices, increased knowledge of lead hazards, and regulatory change will help Baltimore take a step closer to eliminating lead poisoning by 2010.