New York City Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program (CLPPPP)

The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) has been providing technical assistance and evaluation support to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program (CLPPPP) since the inception of the initiative in 2007. Each of the 15 grantee programs operates within a unique local landscape that impacts the distinct challenges they face and successes they accomplish.
As a CLPPP Program grantee, the New York City CLPPPP program seeks to achieve five goals:
1. Identify housing at greatest risk of lead-based paint hazards.
2. Develop partnerships and community engagement to promote primary prevention.
3. Promote interventions to create lead-safe housing units.
4. Build lead-safe work practices (LSWP) workforce capacity.
5. Identify community resources for lead-hazard control.

Since 2007, New York City CLPPPP has worked with property owners to remove lead paint hazards from housing citywide and specifically targets high-risk neighborhoods, high-risk housing, and high-risk children. New York City uses six strategies to identify the specific high-risk housing units:
1. Use the city’s blood lead registry and the birth registry to identify housing of children under μg/dL and newborns under six months of age living in the same building;
2. Inspect homes in response to referrals from the Newborn Home Visiting Program because of peeling paint in the newborn’s home.
3. Inspect homes in response to referrals for peeling paint in the homes of young children in the department’s asthma initiative.
4. Identify buildings where two or more Commissioner’s Orders for lead paint violations have been cited in at least two apartments and offer to conduct inspections in apartments where there is peeling paint and a child under six years of age.
5. Respond to tenants’ complaints of work that has disturbed painted surfaces and generated uncontained paint dust and debris in the apartments and common areas of residential buildings that house children less than 18 years of age.
6. Respond to tenants’ complaints of peeling paint in one- and two-family homes where there is a child under six years of age.

Inspectional staff of EPA-certified lead risk assessors perform the inspections for lead paint hazards and other environmental home health hazards using the six strategies listed above. For inspections of peeling lead paint hazards for the first four strategies, the inspector administers a lead risk assessment questionnaire, conducts a visual inspection of all painted surfaces, and then conducts XRF testing of all peeling paint and painted window sills. If the landlord fails to fix the violations and/or submit the results of acceptable clearance dust wipe tests, a referral is made to the NYC housing agency to make the repairs and conduct clearance dust sampling. For unsafe work complaints, if the inspector observes uncontained paint dust and debris, the inspector takes dust wipe samples and orders the owner and the contractor to stop the work, immediately clean up, and resume work using safe work practices that contain and minimize dust. Clearance dust wipe samples are also required for premises where lead paint violations are cited. In all inspections, the Primary Prevention Program provides counseling and education on lead poisoning prevention, and re-inspections are conducted until violations have been addressed. In 2015, the program began a pilot initiative to post a dust hazard warning sign, in addition to providing dust wipe results. Referrals to Department of Buildings are also being made, along with the tenant protection taskforce, where appropriate. The Primary Prevention Program routinely refers addresses where unsafe work is identified to EPA for assessment of compliance with RRP.

Lead paint dust created during renovation work can substantially increase children’s exposure to lead. New York City works to address this problem by training workers, landlords, homeowners, and contractors in lead-safe work practices. These trainings, delivered in either English or in Spanish, focus on reducing the amount of dust generated during paint-disturbing work, containing any dust generated, and thoroughly cleaning the jobsite after work to remove any lead-contaminated dust.