Child lead exposure is the highest it's been in four years. Who's solving the problem?
Lead paint has been found to be hazardous to human health, and is a particular danger to children.
Jess Mador | MPR News 2009
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The state legislature passed a $240 million bill back in May focused on lead exposure in drinking water.
But in older homes in Minneapolis, lead exposure doesn’t just come from the plumbing. It could be all over the home, from the walls to the window sills.
Child lead exposure in Minneapolis is currently the highest it's been in four years, according to the city's health department. Alex Vollmer is working on a team that’s trying to reverse that trend.
Vollmer is supervisor of health inspections at the city of Minneapolis and he spoke to MPR News host Cathy Wurzer about what they’re doing to keep lead exposure down.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: The state legislature passed a $240 million bill back in May focused on lead exposure in drinking water. But in older homes in Minneapolis, lead isn't just in the plumbing, it could be all over the home from the walls to the window sills. Child lead exposure in Minneapolis is currently the highest it's been in four years. That's according to the city's Health Department. We're going to hear from a team working to reverse that trend. Alex Vollmer is the Supervisor of Health Inspections with the City of Minneapolis. Welcome to the program, Alex.
ALEX VOLLMER: Hi, Cathy. Thank you so much for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Thanks for being here. Gee, I thought that the lead paint problem was pretty much solved. But as I just said in that intro, we're seeing an increase over the last four years? What's going on?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, that's true. You know, Cathy, one thing that we want to point out is that when you take a step back and you look at the 20 year time frame, we do see a decreasing trend line in the number of children that are lead poisoned. But unfortunately, over the last couple of years, COVID has really upended some of those numbers, much like it has done for a lot of other reasons.
During 2020, we saw a dramatic decrease in lead testing rates and poisoning rates because families weren't going to their doctor on a normal basis. We continued to provide home visits during this time when needed. We wanted to keep the family safe. But then in '20 and '21 and 2022 when families started going back to their doctor and kids were getting their blood lead tested, we started to see those increases, and we really think that's due to the families spending more time at home.
A lot of exposure is coming from incidental contact with hazards in older homes, and so the pandemic driving people to stay at home just increases those opportunities for exposure and risk. We all really encourage those so far in 2023 as rates are about 40% to 50% lower year to date just from last year.
CATHY WURZER: OK. Because Minneapolis has an older housing stock, are we just seeing homes, as you say, that have more lead paint in them?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, that's true. A majority of Minneapolis homes were built between 1910 and 1940. During that time, the use of lead based paint was a very common practice, so we're talking about paint in homes that are close to if not already a century old. So if the paint or the building component that the lead is on is not removed, it just continues to break down and then create more risk for the occupants and particularly children.
CATHY WURZER: I grew up kind of close to Hiawatha Avenue as a kid in South Minneapolis, and that's a fairly robust-- or was a robust industrial area back in the day off of Lake Street. And I'm wondering, are there other forms of lead in those areas of the city that are also problematic?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, definitely. There's a legacy issue with lead that was from gasoline. So not only is the paint inside of the child's home or a residence home-- really, a focal point-- but also the soil around their houses. And that's just due to the exhaust from gasoline getting into the soil and contaminating that soil.
So around busy areas, the major roads in Minneapolis, Lake Street, Portland, Park Avenue, some of these major thoroughfares-- we do see higher levels of lead in the soil. And unfortunately, we have kids gardening. We have kids playing construction and playing in that soil, so that definitely is another route of exposure for them.
CATHY WURZER: So what does exposure look like in a kid-- lead exposure?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. I mean, it can start off really what seems like almost regular behavior-- irritability, emotional reactions, maybe abdominal pain, so things that people might expect to kind of see on a regular basis if you're just not having a good day. So it's really difficult to see some of those symptoms manifest themselves.
But if you start to get higher levels of exposure, you can start to see more physical symptoms start to present-- fever, more upset stomach, loss of appetite-- things like that-- and maybe even more severe kind of behavioral extremes.
CATHY WURZER: So I mentioned that there is this money coming from the state focused on lead exposure and drinking water. You and I are talking about some other different lead exposures. What does lead outreach look like in the city of Minneapolis? How do you get to families to talk about safety and how to mitigate?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. So we have a really robust data set. We've been responding to children with elevated blood leads for about 30 years in Minneapolis, so we've started to really map out where those instances are occurring. And we see them happening really in five neighborhoods on the city's North and South sides. Unfortunately, those are neighborhoods where a lot of our families are immigrants or BIPOC community. So we really want to be trying to reach out to those communities.
A couple of the ways that we're doing it is we're really doing a lot of partnership and outreach in those neighborhoods. We really want to partner with the community organizations to kind of lend that gentle hand when working with residents. So churches, home improvement and ownership organizations, health providers, child-focused organizations like Head Start, culturally focused organizations really help us reach families, particularly in those communities where we see them more affected.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Alex, is there a website that, if people want more information, they can click and get the information they need?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. We've been building out our website over the last year. It's www.minneapolismn.gov/lead-paint. Lots of information. We have all of our community events up there. We have info about lead as well as our grant programs available as well.
CATHY WURZER: Great. Alex Vollmer, thank you so much.
ALEX VOLLMER: Thank you, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER:
ALEX VOLLMER: Alex Vollmer is the Supervisor of Health Inspections for the City of Minneapolis. By the way, you can read more about the city's outreach efforts in an article written by our friends at Sahan Journal. That's an online news source that covers BIPOC and refugee communities across Minnesota. Go to sahanjournal.com for more.
ALEX VOLLMER: Hi, Cathy. Thank you so much for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Thanks for being here. Gee, I thought that the lead paint problem was pretty much solved. But as I just said in that intro, we're seeing an increase over the last four years? What's going on?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, that's true. You know, Cathy, one thing that we want to point out is that when you take a step back and you look at the 20 year time frame, we do see a decreasing trend line in the number of children that are lead poisoned. But unfortunately, over the last couple of years, COVID has really upended some of those numbers, much like it has done for a lot of other reasons.
During 2020, we saw a dramatic decrease in lead testing rates and poisoning rates because families weren't going to their doctor on a normal basis. We continued to provide home visits during this time when needed. We wanted to keep the family safe. But then in '20 and '21 and 2022 when families started going back to their doctor and kids were getting their blood lead tested, we started to see those increases, and we really think that's due to the families spending more time at home.
A lot of exposure is coming from incidental contact with hazards in older homes, and so the pandemic driving people to stay at home just increases those opportunities for exposure and risk. We all really encourage those so far in 2023 as rates are about 40% to 50% lower year to date just from last year.
CATHY WURZER: OK. Because Minneapolis has an older housing stock, are we just seeing homes, as you say, that have more lead paint in them?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, that's true. A majority of Minneapolis homes were built between 1910 and 1940. During that time, the use of lead based paint was a very common practice, so we're talking about paint in homes that are close to if not already a century old. So if the paint or the building component that the lead is on is not removed, it just continues to break down and then create more risk for the occupants and particularly children.
CATHY WURZER: I grew up kind of close to Hiawatha Avenue as a kid in South Minneapolis, and that's a fairly robust-- or was a robust industrial area back in the day off of Lake Street. And I'm wondering, are there other forms of lead in those areas of the city that are also problematic?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah, definitely. There's a legacy issue with lead that was from gasoline. So not only is the paint inside of the child's home or a residence home-- really, a focal point-- but also the soil around their houses. And that's just due to the exhaust from gasoline getting into the soil and contaminating that soil.
So around busy areas, the major roads in Minneapolis, Lake Street, Portland, Park Avenue, some of these major thoroughfares-- we do see higher levels of lead in the soil. And unfortunately, we have kids gardening. We have kids playing construction and playing in that soil, so that definitely is another route of exposure for them.
CATHY WURZER: So what does exposure look like in a kid-- lead exposure?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. I mean, it can start off really what seems like almost regular behavior-- irritability, emotional reactions, maybe abdominal pain, so things that people might expect to kind of see on a regular basis if you're just not having a good day. So it's really difficult to see some of those symptoms manifest themselves.
But if you start to get higher levels of exposure, you can start to see more physical symptoms start to present-- fever, more upset stomach, loss of appetite-- things like that-- and maybe even more severe kind of behavioral extremes.
CATHY WURZER: So I mentioned that there is this money coming from the state focused on lead exposure and drinking water. You and I are talking about some other different lead exposures. What does lead outreach look like in the city of Minneapolis? How do you get to families to talk about safety and how to mitigate?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. So we have a really robust data set. We've been responding to children with elevated blood leads for about 30 years in Minneapolis, so we've started to really map out where those instances are occurring. And we see them happening really in five neighborhoods on the city's North and South sides. Unfortunately, those are neighborhoods where a lot of our families are immigrants or BIPOC community. So we really want to be trying to reach out to those communities.
A couple of the ways that we're doing it is we're really doing a lot of partnership and outreach in those neighborhoods. We really want to partner with the community organizations to kind of lend that gentle hand when working with residents. So churches, home improvement and ownership organizations, health providers, child-focused organizations like Head Start, culturally focused organizations really help us reach families, particularly in those communities where we see them more affected.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Alex, is there a website that, if people want more information, they can click and get the information they need?
ALEX VOLLMER: Yeah. We've been building out our website over the last year. It's www.minneapolismn.gov/lead-paint. Lots of information. We have all of our community events up there. We have info about lead as well as our grant programs available as well.
CATHY WURZER: Great. Alex Vollmer, thank you so much.
ALEX VOLLMER: Thank you, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER:
ALEX VOLLMER: Alex Vollmer is the Supervisor of Health Inspections for the City of Minneapolis. By the way, you can read more about the city's outreach efforts in an article written by our friends at Sahan Journal. That's an online news source that covers BIPOC and refugee communities across Minnesota. Go to sahanjournal.com for more.
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