THE IMPACT OF SOIL LEAD ABATEMENT ON URBAN CHILDRENS BLOOD LEAD LEVELS - PHASE-II RESULTS FROM THE BOSTON-LEAD-IN-SOIL-DEMONSTRATION-PROJECT

The Boston Lead-In-Soil Demonstration Project was a randomized environ mental intervention study of the impact of urban soil lead abatement o n children's blood lead levels. Lead-contaminated soil abatement was a ssociated with a modest reduction in children's blood lead levels in b oth phases of the project; however, the reduction in Phase II was some what greater than that in Phase I. The combined results from both phas es suggest that a soil lead reduction of 2060 ppm is associated with a 2.25 to 2.70 mu g/dl decline in blood lead levels. Low levels of soil recontamination 1 to 2 years following abatement indicate that the in tervention is persistent, at least over the short-term. Furthermore, t he intervention appears to benefit most children since no measurable d ifferences in efficacy were observed for starting blood and soil lead level, race, neighborhood, gender, and many other characteristics. How ever, soil abatement did appear to be more beneficial to children in t he higher socioeconomic classes, with low baseline ferritin levels, an d who spent time away from home on a regular basis and lived in nonown er occupied housing, and with adults who had lead-related hobbies and almost always washed their hands before meals. Children who lived in a partments with consistently elevated floor dust lead loading levels de rived almost no benefit from the soil abatement. It was not possible t o separate the effects of the variables that had a beneficial impact o n efficacy because they were closely correlated and the number of subj ects was small. We recommend that further research be conducted to ide ntify subgroups of children to whom soil lead abatement might be targe ted. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.