New Web Site to Screen for Lead Poisoning

Newswise — Michigan State University researchers have developed a new Web-based tool that has proven to be much more effective than current methods of predicting which children are at increased risk of lead poisoning.

The new tool, which was developed in cooperation with the Michigan Department of Community Health and funded by the Centers for Disease Control, collects detailed information from the parent about a child's residential address, housing condition, socio-economic status and race " all pertinent information when determining lead-poisoning risk " and provides a highly reliable assessment of that risk.

Details of the Web site, including information on its effectiveness, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, held Nov. 16-19 in San Francisco.

"This new screening tool makes it possible to quantify relevant information into a rather precise prediction," said Stan Kaplowitz, an MSU professor of sociology and one of the developers of the Web site. "This quantification is based on an extensive statistical analysis of actual blood lead levels found in approximately 90,000 one-year-old children in Michigan."

Existing screening tools rely primarily on Medicaid status and classifying ZIP codes as high or low risk. This new method, Kaplowitz said, uses the census block group, a much smaller, more homogeneous geographic unit than the ZIP code.

"In addition, it uses census data about housing and socio-economic characteristics of the block group to determine the risk of the area," he said. "It also treats risk as a continuous variable, rather than collapsing it into two categories."

A physician's office or clinical site will be encouraged to access the Web site, which can be found by anyone at http://midata.msu.edu/bll/ . The user will be asked to enter the child's name, current address, birth date, as well as answers to questions such as "has the child ever lived in any house with peeling paint," "has the child ever lived in any house in which the drinking water came from lead pipes," and "do any of the child's siblings have elevated BLL?"

The Web site then returns a recommendation as to whether the child's lead poisoning risk is sufficient to merit blood lead level (BLL) testing. It also will provide estimates of the probabilities that the child has BLL above 10 micrograms per deciliter (10mcg/dL).

By comparing their predictions to actual blood lead test results, Kaplowitz and colleagues determined that their new screening tool would have identified at least 96 percent of the one-year-old children whose blood lead levels is 10 mcg/dL.

"This also would have resulted in about 30,000 fewer BLL tests," Kaplowitz said, "thus saving a considerable amount of money."

"This site is another tool we can use to protect our children from the effects of lead poisoning," said Kimberlydawn Wisdom, Michigan's Surgeon General. "Together - with Michigan State University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention " we're combining existing resources and using reliable data to combat lead poisoning - especially for children at increased risk."

Lead poisoning is one of the most common environmental child health problems in the United States and affects as many as 20,000 children under the age of six in Michigan. If undetected, lead poisoning can cause permanent developmental disabilities, brain damage and even death.

Children encounter lead by ingesting lead paint dust, dust from household remodeling projects, or through lead contamination found in water and soil.