Paul Bass Photo
Maritza Bond and Rafael Ramos at WNHH FM.
Rafael Ramos grabbed a Swiffer and a damp rag and hit the streets this week, to help save the lives of the youngest New Haveners.
Ramos deployed those dust-destroying weapons in his role as New Haven’s city environmental health director. He used them in the first of two scheduled “wet cleaning demonstration and giveaways” aimed at helping parents learn the best ways to prevent their toddlers and tots from wiping their fingers across or breathing in fine particulates of lead paint that escape brooms or vacuum cleaners and can cause lifelong health problems.
The demonstrations are among a dozen events the city health department has organized as part of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, which runs through Saturday.
Other events include “healthy homes” workshops for homeowners, reading aloud to school kids stories that raise awareness, and the erection of lawn signs in neighborhoods throughout the city with information about how to prevent lead poisoning of children.
The stakes are high: Children under 6 who touch, swallow, or breathe lead dust can end up with damaged brain and nervous systems, slowed growth, learning and behavioral and hearing problems, lowered IQs, and attention deficits. And in New Haven, where 70 percent of households rent their homes, over 80 percent of dwellings were built before 1978. Which means they at one time had lead paint on the walls and doors and window sills before the government banned its use.
“There’s good news: It’s 100 percent preventable,” Ramos said about lead paint poisoning during a joint appearance Tuesday with city Health Director Maritza Bond on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “That’s what we’re up to this week.”
This week’s events present an opportunity for the health department to get out the word that families and landlords and owner-occupants can obtain forgivable loans of up to $25,000 to make their apartments lead-paint free. The city has received $7.6 million from the federal government since 2019 to support that work.
The city has upped its lead-fighting game since in 2019 after legal aid lawyers filed a suit (since settled) to press for more action: It has created this dashboard tracking cases. It has hired more outreach workers and inspectors. It has upgraded its digital system for internally tracking cases. And it has led the state in lowering the threshold in which it takes actions to help poisoned kids: It opens investigations into all referrals from doctors of children under 6 showing elevated blood lead levels of 5 or more micrograms per deciliter. The statewide threshold is 15, scheduled to drop to 5 by 2025. The city, meanwhile, is moving toward an updated threshold of 3.5 suggested by the federal Centers for Disease Control. It’s currently working on a caseload of 120 – 130 children under 6, according to Bond.
Bond urged parents and landlords to click here and here to find out more information about how to get city help to rid homes of lead paint or protect children from lead paint poisoning and hear about how more broadly to tap into her department’s “Healthy Homes” initiative.
Click on the above video to watch the full discussion with Bond and Ramos about lead paint poisoning and the city’s efforts on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of Dateline New Haven.
Steps in a very positive direction. Kudos to Maritza and Rafael and the health department
team.