Ohio’s Lead Hazards

Lead is found in most of Ohio’s housing stock because the majority of units were built prior to 1978, the year the federal government banned lead in house paint. The age of housing is an important risk indicator because, in general, the older the housing unit, the greater the probability the unit has lead paint.

According to a recent housing assessment
by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency:

ONE IN FOUR
housing units in Ohio were built before 1950, including 58% of homes in the urban cores of Ohio’s cities.

OHIO IS SECOND ONLY
to Pennsylvania, among neighboring states, in percentage of all housing built prior to 1978 (67.1%), including percentage built 1949 or earlier.

MORE THAN TWO-THIRDS
of Ohio’s homes were built before 1980 (67% or 3,580,000), at which point lead-based paint was banned.

Where is Lead Found

Lead can be found in all parts of our environment – the air, the soil, the water, and even inside our homes.

Lead occurs naturally in soils, typically at concentrations that range from 10 to 50 mg/kg (milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil, equivalent to parts of lead per million parts of soil, or ppm). Because of the widespread use of leaded paint before the mid-1970s and leaded gasoline before the mid-1980s, as well as contamination from various industrial sources, urban soils often have lead concentrations much greater than normal background levels. Lead does not biodegrade, or disappear over time, but remains in soils for thousands of years.

When lead is added to the soil surface, it tends to accumulate in the upper 1 to 2 inches of soil unless the soil has been disturbed by activities such as excavation for building or tillage for landscaping and gardening. Added lead also will become most concentrated in very fine soil particles, which tend to stick to skin and clothing and form airborne soil dust. Not all of the lead in soil is available to plants (or to the human body, should the soil be eaten).

People are exposed to soil lead either from direct contact with contaminated soil or from contact with very fine soil particles carried into houses as airborne dust or on shoes, clothing, or pets. Lead is taken into the body by either ingestion (eating) or inhalation (breathing). Children 2-3 years of age are at high risk for ingesting lead because they are apt to mouth dirty items such as toys and pacifiers and to suck dirty fingers and hands. Exposure also may result from eating garden produce grown in or near contaminated soil.

It is estimated that young children consume around 200 mg of soil per day, about the volume of an aspirin tablet.

Lead is found in drinking water. With 650,000 lead service lines (LSLs), Ohio is second only to Illinois (730,000) in the nation in the number of lead services lines, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Lead service lines are lead pipes that bring drinking water from the water main in the street to the home. While children’s lead exposure from water is thought to be less than their exposure to lead-based paint, children 0 to 6 months may be at high risk because many are dependent on dry formula mixed with water.

Lead is found in children’s products and other consumer goods. Lead may be found in children’s jewelry or products made of vinyl or plastic, such as bibs, backpacks, car seats and lunch boxes.

A child can absorb lead found in these products by mouthing or chewing on them or can inhale lead if the product is burned, damaged or deteriorating.

Children are also poisoned in Ohio through ingesting lead in consumer goods, such as in lead used to manufacture imported makeup and spices.

Lead can be found in household dust. A house can look clean and still have lead in it. Household dust can contain lead from paint chips or soil brought in from outside. It is a common source of lead exposure for young children because they can breathe in or eat it. The dust can contain lead from interior lead-based paint or tracked-in, contaminated soil.

Food can be contaminated with lead during production, processing, packaging, preparation or storage. For example, vegetables may be grown in soil that contains lead, or exposed to exhaust from fuel that contains lead. Lead can leak into canned foods from tins manufactured with lead solder. And some food containers and pots contain lead, such as lead-glazed pottery and leaded crystal glassware.

Childhood Lead Poisoning Rates

While Ohio’s childhood lead poisoning rates are trending downward, thousands of children continue to have elevated levels of lead in their blood. The following statistics were reported by the Ohio Department of Health in its OLAC Annual Report

168,352

CHILDREN
tested for lead
poisoning in
Ohio in 2018.

3,856

CHILDREN
with confirmed blood lead levels of 5 µg/dL**
or greater. This was 2.29% of the total tested
population in 2018.

1,119

CHILDREN
with confirmed blood lead levels of 10 µg/dL** or
greater. This was 0.66% of the total tested population
in 2018.