City of Lawrence Lead Abatement Program

With funding from the Health Impact Project, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, NCHH awarded 15 $5,000 Lead Poisoning Awareness Community Mini-Grants in 2017. These grants were for community events focused on raising awareness, engaging community leaders in advocacy, or motivating policy change around lead poisoning prevention.
As a mini-grantee, the City of Lawrence partnered with the City of Lawrence Mayor’s Health Task Force (MHTF) and the Merrimack Valley Lead Poisoning Prevention Program to conduct a Lead Awareness community fair. This fair provided information to families that underscores the importance of lead screenings, testing your home, and learning how to prevent lead poisoning.
Other efforts as part of this initiative included a press release to call for the participation of city officials, the state delegation, as well as community stakeholders, parents and educators and promote concerted efforts that support and advance lead poisoning prevention. Lead prevention education and awareness of remediation resources was presented at the MHTF October meeting. Outreach efforts for this initiative included social media marketing, local radio announcements and published ads in the local English and Spanish speaking newspapers.
Results of the funded activities include:
• 122 people attended the event
• 81 children participated in lead fair activities
• 41 families received lead exposure reduction kits
• 100 people received lead exposure reduction kits
• 5 children had their BLL test done on site
• Approximately 300 people were reached through social media
• Approximately 500 people were reached through local newspaper advertisements
• Partnerships that were created with several other resources in the community including: Smoke Free Program, Nutrition Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Extension, the Merrimack Valley Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutritional program.
Going forward, the Lawrence Lead Abatement program has continued to be an active participant in the MHTF efforts since the Lead Awareness fair, with increased funding to be used in conjunction with lead hazard control and healthy homes grants to improve the quality of the local housing stock, and an increased number of referrals to the Lead Abatement program through other community resources