... homes, families and neighborhoods in need.
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Kimalon Meriweather, project director of the Lead Safe Living Campaign, first met Robin Brown – a Cleveland mom – in 2005 at The City Club of Cleveland. Little did Meriweather know that chance meeting would change her life and the lives of others throughout Greater Cleveland.
At that forum, Robin relayed the following horror story:
“I’ll never forget…it was September 3, 1999, when we received the call to rush her to the emergency room. My daughter’s blood lead level was 70*. My assumption was she was going to be treated and she would be normal again. Little did I know normal was not to be.”
“I was instantly struck by the conviction and pain in her voice when she spoke about how her child was dangerously poisoned and how there was no one there to assist her or help her to connect with resources,” Meriweather recalls. “I was inspired by Robin’s commitment to make other parents aware of the hidden dangers that may be in their homes. With tears in her eyes as she told her story – I thought to myself that no one should have to endure that kind of pain and helplessness.”
With that first meeting as a constant reminder of the importance of the work, Meriweather now leads the multifaceted collaboration known as the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) between the Public Health Departments of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, and more than 70 other member organizations that include concerned citizens, medical providers, contractors, government officials, and health and environmental advocates. The GCLAC is the Saint Luke’s Foundation’s fourth transformational initiative and, to date, the Foundation has invested more than $2 million in the quest to eradicate lead poisoning in Greater Cleveland.
Investment leads to change.
The good news is that the collaboration has evolved and is now a well-running machine. The better news? The percentage of children with elevated levels of lead (using the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention threshold) in their blood has dropped two percent (from 8% to 6%) in the last five years. “That two percent translates into big gains in terms of the number of children who aren’t being poisoned,” Meriweather noted.
That drop can be credited to GCLAC’s continued focus on finding solutions. Since its inception, GCLAC’s wide-ranging collaborative efforts have included:
• Educating the community about the dangers of lead by providing classes and presentations to parent groups, landlords, block clubs, tenant groups, realtor groups, etc.
• Participating in public hearings to identify lead poisoning as a local/state priority and advocating for funding
• Leveraging the Saint Luke’s Foundation’s investment to obtain $7 million in funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Utilizing the media to publicize the importance of lead poisoning prevention
• Providing appropriate lead-safe renovation training for contractors working on housing rehabilitation and training contractors to build their skill and capacity in underserved communities
• Building relationships and capacity to integrate the issue of lead within the City of Cleveland and first ring suburban Community Development Departments
• Working through faith-based communities in inner ring suburbs to coordinate local prevention groups
Unique partnerships drive results.
“I think this collaborative is unique not only in the state but perhaps
in the country,” says George Hrbek of Lutheran
Metropolitan Ministry, an outreach and advocacy group that was one
of the initiative’s founding organizations. “It’s been significant in
some of the things we’ve been able to make happen and it’s going to be
absolutely significant in our ability to address issues more effectively
in the future.”
Robin Brown, whose story motivates so many to work tirelessly on this community challenge, is another member of the coalition. The group she formed, Concerned Citizens Organized Against Lead (or CCOAL), is part of the Council’s outreach effort, taking the much-needed educational message out into the community.
“The problem with lead poisoning is that it’s a silent disease that comes upon our kids,” says Brown. “You can’t see the lead dust that is contaminating our homes and poisoning our children.”
Through classes and presentations, Brown and her group are helping parents and caregivers know what to look for, and what to do, to prevent exposure.
More work yet to be done.
Although GCLAC members are pleased with the progress
of the last five years, there is much more work yet to be done in the years
ahead.
“Once you get into the area of childhood lead poisoning and prevention, there are many little areas that impact that overall goal,” Meriweather explains. “So we’re fine-tuning and truly personalizing what elimination will look like in Greater Cleveland.”
Incremental goals toward eliminating lead poisoning include:
• Having 100 percent of Greater Cleveland's at-risk children screened
• Increasing any activity (demolition, lead hazard control) that will keep a child from being in an adverse situation
• Promoting the adoption of public policies (housing, soil remediation, consumer products) that reduce the percentage of young children living in at-risk situations
• Ensuring a workforce is in place to perform lead-hazard control
• Making sure school districts are ready and that teachers have the resources both to recognize lead poisoning and to educate affected children
• Adopting a new level of awareness for lead poisoning from 10 µg/dl to 5 µg/dl (the amount of lead in a child’s blood in micrograms per tenth of a liter = µg/dl)
Threshold?
The Cleveland Department of Public Health, Shaker Heights Health District, and Cuyahoga County Board of Health historically used the lead poisoning definition set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); in fact, in 1990, the CDC established a threshold — lead levels of 10 µg/dl or greater were deemed a level of concern (now commonly considered ‘lead poisoned’), lowered from the previous level of 25 µg/dl. However, in recent years, there has been great local debate about those thresholds. In 2007, the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council took the initiative and made Greater Cleveland one of the first municipalities in the United States to lower the threshold.
Work thrives with strong partners.
The key to the GCLAC’s ongoing ability to advance its goals will be both old and new partnerships.
For example, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, headed by Commissioner
Terry Allen, is a significant partner helping with both communication and
resources by providing grant programs and taking the school initiative to
East Cleveland and other inner-ring suburbs.
“Having that relationship with the largest health district in Northeast Ohio really helps strengthen this effort,” says Meriweather.
Another “valuable partnership is with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District,” says Meriweather, who credits Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson with providing the impetus.
“The mayor brought the school district in and had us develop a strategy for how we were going to address children in the school district who were lead exposed, especially kids entering the school district (for the first time).”
Some of those ideas included mandating lead screening as a requirement for enrollment, educating the teaching staff about lead poisoning and using schools as a means to reach and educate parents about lead poisoning.
Meriweather says teachers are great allies, especially for getting the word
out.
Ongoing research informs the work.
New research is also helping to strengthen and guide the efforts
of those battling lead and its effects.
“A lot of our mindset in the past has been that once a child hits school we’ve kind of missed our mark (in terms of preventing lead exposure),” says Meriweather. “But there’s some new research coming out that says that there are some older children who are getting exposed…ages 3, 4 and 5, even 6.”
She says the new research indicates that exposure at older ages is possibly more detrimental to older children.
Other research, however, by Dr. Sonia Minnes of Case Western Reserve University is shedding a positive ray of light on the situation.
“She’s done a lot of research on the impact of lead poisoning on the brain…fascinating
work about what can help these children learn,” says Meriweather. “There’s
preliminary research that shows that (placing) children in an enriched learning
environment can help diminish some of the cognitive impairments caused by
lead poisoning.”
Minnes is a co-researcher on a proposal that was just drafted to the
National Institutes of Health to use eight pilot classrooms in the Cleveland
Metropolitan School District to test this theory. The study will help determine
if there are enrichments and certain practices that will diminish some of
the cognitive delays that result from being exposed to lead.
Meriweather says the new research, information and partnerships are all helping to focus and refine the efforts. “These are all new things that are really changing how our members are approaching this issue.”
The members of the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council won’t be satisfied, however, until the problem is eradicated completely. They’re looking forward to the day when people look back and think of lead poisoning as a health issue of the past, the way people now view polio.
Meriweather puts it simply, “Helplessness, victimization, and lack of awareness of life changing issues should not be a way of life. It angers me that innocent children may be affected for a lifetime because of 'lack'...lack of awareness of this issue, lack of a connection to resources that can help. No one should have to live with environmental hazards that may impair their present or future standard of living. We need to have zero percent of the children with elevated blood levels,” and that’s what the GCLAC continues to strive for.
* According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, blood lead levels exceeding 70 μg/dl (micrograms per deciliter) can cause coma, seizures, bizarre behavior, impaired muscular coordination, and even death.
| Posted by Kimalon Meriweather on Nov 30, 2009, 12:22 pm |
| The 2009 Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council 4th Annual Symposium was held on June 12, 2009 at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The Symposium was symbolically titled- "Countdown to 2010: Revisiting the Past & Planning for the Future". The Symposium served as an opportunity to reflect on past efforts, successes and shortfalls as we strive to eliminate lead poisoning in Greater Cleveland. The keynote address was delivered by Ruth Ann Norton, Executive Director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning (Baltimore, Maryland).
The Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council recently adopted a revised goal for the overall lead elimination initiative. The goal is comprised of four parameters that will achieve and personalize the elimination of childhood lead poisoning in Cuyahoga County. The adopted goal is as follows:
We will eliminate childhood lead poisoning in Cuyahoga County by:
- Achieving a 50% rate of reduction of children (under age 6) with elevated blood levels (EBL) (5> micrograms per decilter) every 10 years with 2 year incremental timeframes as benchmarks for blood lead testing and EBL rates.
- Increasing the number of prevention activities (including lead remediation and prevention awareness) that will reduce the number of children that are exposed to household lead hazards.
- Promoting the adoption of public policies and objectives (including federal clearance and dust level standards, childcare settings, air quality and water, housing, soil remediation, lead testing and consumer products) that reduce the percentage of young children exposed to at-risk situations.
- Ensuring the education of lead poisoned children through research and promotion of appropriate educational policies and practices.
Lead Safe Living Campaign grant partner, Environmental Health Watch recently completed a comprehensive report that covered the following topics:
Lead poisoning prevalence by Cleveland neighborhoods (2000-2009), Tenant reported Landlord Compliance with the Federal Disclosure Law, current dust standards (risk assessment & clearance) in comparison to newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, comparative analysis of lead levels with children tested at 1-2 years and 3-4 years and Cleveland addresses with multiple cases of lead poisonings. Data from this report will be used to assess and target interventions and as the basis of policy recommendations to HUD and EPA on dust lead standards and lead testing policy recommendations.
The GCLAC/Lead Safe Living Campaign worked formed a strategic partnership with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD)to develop and implement a strategy to combat lead poisoning in the school district. The CMSD Early childhood educators were provided with outreach and education about the issue of lead poisoning. It is our goal to build on these efforts in 2010 to include more outreach to parents and mirror activities into neighboring school districts. |
| Posted by Terry Allan on Nov 23, 2009, 1:04 pm |
| An excellent approach to providing the story and human experience behind the words. A fresh approach to the annual report. Thanks for a great report and for all your support! |
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