The Sixteenth Street Community Health Center’s (SSCHC) Community Lead Outreach Project is the longest standing program housed in the Department of Environmental Health. 

Comprised of a team of community health outreach workers and support staff, the core activities of the project involve home-based education, assessment and intervention done in coordination with agency-wide lead screening of children at our two medical facilities and our WIC clinic.  One component of the project involves knocking on doors in the community to identify at-risk families and offers its services free of charge, which has proven successful at reaching families who do not regularly see a medical provider.

Lead outreach services are aimed at improving community understanding of the threat posed by deteriorating lead-based paint, and provide regular follow-up care for children who have been poisoned by lead.

The Community Lead Outreach Project is actively working with more than 900 families.  Last year 6,300 lead tests were done on 4,860 children through the outreach project, as a part of a medical visit or at our WIC clinic.  This comprehensive approach has helped reduce the rate of lead poisoning among children in SSCHC’s service area from 34% in 1996 to approximately 6% in 2005.

Additional information about the dangers of lead poisoning can be found in Nutrition & Wellness.