Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Lead Safe Babies: an evidence-based primary prevention program
Nancy L. Rothman, MSN, EdD, RN, Nursing, CAHP, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA and Tine Hansen-Turton, MGA, NNCC, National Nursing Center Consortium, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: explore an evidence-based primary prevention program offered through a City of Philadelphia and National Nursing Center Consortium partnership. |
| Learning Objective #2: evaluate the risk of exposure to lead as an international health problem. |
Lead poisoning remains the most preventable children’s environmental health problem. The Lead Poisoning Prevention Program of the City of Philadelphia has partnered with the National Nursing Centers Consortium to provide Lead Safe Babies (LSB), a CDC and HUD funded evidence-based primary prevention program with the goal of eliminating lead poisoning in the most at risk areas of the City. The LSB design, intervention and outcomes will be shared, along with an opportunity to identify the risk of lead in the environment as an international health concern. LSB provides a scripted educational intervention for pregnant women and caregivers of children less than one year old, along with a bucket of products that help eliminate the risk of lead in the environment. A pre/post-test, before and one month after the educational intervention, that addresses knowledge of lead poisoning is completed by caregivers. An environmental home assessment and lead dust swipes are done within the home. Homes with high lead dust levels had interim controls, e.g. sealing of windows. With a total N of 2,319 children, 1,116 were in homes with no prior lead elevations, 774 were born within six months of their enrollment in LSB and of these 95 were in homes that had interim controls. Caregivers had a significant increase in knowledge about lead poisoning. Using block groups assigned by geo-coding, higher risk blocks had 69% of LSB children born within six months of their enrollment in LSB with blood lead levels lower than the geometric mean for the City. Seventy-one percent of the LSB children living in high risk blocks that benefited from interim controls had blood lead levels lower than the geometric mean for the City.