Laura Wides
Lead poisoning is the number one environmental health hazard for children under 6 in Providence. It is most commonly found in the paint of old houses and can be indgested by children directly in the form of chips, or from dust and soil. Although a number of new programs have been developed over the past few years to combat this problem, more and more cases have been diagnosed, and the Department of Health can no longer handle them all. While health educators agree that parents must be taught how to protect their children from lead, this is task becomes difficult when families do not speak English, or when they do not possess many resources with which to remediate their homes.
The Department of Health automatically visits children who have a blood lead level of 25 ug/dl and higher, but what happens to those children whose blood levels are below 25 but still significantly high? I intend to study the extent to which home visits made by a community organization can address this population. I will record the effects of educational home visits as conducted by the organization Childhood Lead Action Project (CLAP), to find out whether these visits can result in a decrease in children's blood lead levels over a period of six months. The visits will incorporate education as to the prevalence of lead in home environment, as well as simple, and more expensive, ways in which parents can protect their children from lead. In order to conduct my research, I will follow 16 families over the course of the year. Half of these families will have direct contact with CLAP's outreach program. The other half will not receive personal home visits.
To gain further understanding of the process of health education I will compare this program to a similar one run by DOH, for children above 25 ug/dl, as well as to a new program run out of St. Joseph's hospital. I will also interview other community organizers to find out what specific challenges are involved in working with a Latino population.