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Who Is At Risk?

Lead paint poisoning is the number one environmental health risk for young children (ages 1-6). Children are most often poisoned by old lead-based paint found in their own homes. Until 1978, lead paint was used on interior and exterior painted surfaces in residential buildings and dwellings. Lead paint presents a continuing hazard to children living in older homes where there is peeling, chipped, or flaking paint and lead-contaminated household dust.

One chip of heavily leaded paint, when swallowed, can cause lead poisoning, but children do not need to eat paint chips or paint flakes to get lead poisoning. Many young children are poisoned when they get lead dust on their hands or toys and then put their hands or toys in their mouths.
According to recent estimates by the U.S. Center for Disease Control, "some 890,000 U.S. children between the ages of 1 and 5 have elevated lead levels, and more than one-fifth of African-American children living in urban housing built before 1946 have elevated blood lead levels." CDC Website: Childhood Lead Exposure at http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/faq