Abstract
For decades, the dominant approach to lead poisoning has been to focus on homes affected by lead paint and to treat children who are already suffering from lead poisoning. This individualizing approach developed in the context of the defunding and deregulation of government agencies in the 1980s. In recent years, however, community–academic partnerships have reframed lead as an environmental issue produced by the development of the lead industry in the twentieth century and connected to overlapping histories of exploitation, discrimination, and inaction. These community-based projects have contributed to shifting research agendas (by emphasizing historical analysis and the study of the soil and dust), achieved policy changes (with a focus on community-level solutions), and built networks and solidarity with groups advocating for climate justice, tenant organizing, and food security.
INTRODUCTION
In the early 1980s, humans released 1.6 million metric tons of lead into the environment per year. 1 Although mining and smelting pollution contributed substantially to this number, the dominant source of lead contamination was leaded gasoline, which was responsible for over 248,000 metric tons of emissions every year. 2 In the United States, it is estimated that leaded gasoline left a residue of 4 to 5 million metric tons of lead, which, once deposited into the soil, does not decay or decompose. 3 In the 1960s and 1970s, at the peak of leaded gasoline consumption, the issue of lead in the air was compounded by the issue of lead pipes and peeling lead paint in old buildings. Activists and scientists, consequently, approached lead poisoning as a social and environmental issue with multiple sources and systemic causes. In the 1980s, however, this holistic approach receded as deregulatory processes hindered the capacity of public health agencies to engage in primary prevention (i.e., preventing lead exposures). Lead poisoning shifted to a biomedical issue addressed at the individual level. Today, even though the United Nations estimates that one in three children in the world is poisoned with lead, the dominant approach remains siloed and insufficient. 4
This article examines the work of two research collectives that have used community-based participatory research methods for addressing lead contamination and lead poisoning. These partnerships, one situated in Southern California (the ¡Plo-NO! Santa Ana! Campaign, which translates to “No Lead Santa Ana!”) and the other in Newark, NJ (the Newark Water Coalition, or NWC), have engaged residents and volunteers for sampling and testing, analyzing complex data, intervening in policy debates, and deploying multimedia strategies for community outreach. By building authentic partnerships for community-based collaborative projects, these research collectives have reframed the issue of lead as an environmental justice crisis connected to specific histories of capitalist development and environmental racism. Community activists have also shifted policy agendas to include attention to lead in the soil, protection for tenants, free healthcare services, and other measures at the community level. As part of a movement that ties environmental justice to other forms of discrimination and exploitation, the work of these community organizations with support from academic institutions also prioritizes solidarity with labor organizations, neighborhood associations, advocates for food security, and climate justice movements.
This paper focuses on the ¡Plo-NO! and NWC community–academic partnerships. The ¡Plo-NO! Campaign is a research collective composed of community organizers with Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ) and researchers with the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and Santa Barbara. This collaborative project began in 2017 after a journalistic report found alarming levels of soil lead in the city of Santa Ana (CA). 5 Since then, the ¡Plo-No! Campaign has organized a soil-testing campaign, analyzed the distribution of soil lead across the city, developed a soil-lead bioremediation program, and conducted interdisciplinary research to understand the historical sources of contamination in the area. 6 The Mobile Lead Testing Unit was initiated by the NWC and supported by scholars at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). It is a community-driven research project to survey multimedia lead hazards at the household level and simultaneously conduct a lead mitigation educational campaign. The NWC assessment and educational campaign covered 350 homes in Newark, where children have historically and still continue to have elevated blood lead levels. 7 The Testing Unit found elevated lead levels in the soil and household dust and identified 15% of the homes with lead-based paint. 8 The project initiated additional university-community campaigns to test public parks and additional homes.
This study uses qualitative methods to understand the impact that community-based participatory research methods have had on decisions of research agendas, policy discussions, and community organizing. 9 It draws from semistructured interviews conducted from 2020 to 2023. Interviewees included organizers with OCEJ and NWC, executive directors, local institutions, residents, and academic researchers with UCB and UCI. This article also draws from participatory observation conducted at membership meetings, research discussions, and regular planning meetings. This article is cowritten by both community-based organizations’ leaders and their corresponding academic partners in an effort to strengthen the collaborative process, engage in collective reflection, and build solidarity between advocacy groups.
The presence of lead in urban environments is connected to deliberate decisions by the lead industry to expand its market during the twentieth century. Pigment manufacturers introduced lead paint in the early twentieth century as a product that accelerated drying and increased durability and shine. For the increasingly integrated lead industries (i.e., mining companies, smelters, and pigment factories), this product was also a means to grow their market beyond toys, light bulbs, and other household products. Even though Australia and several European countries had banned lead paint due to safety concerns in the 1920s, lead producers in the United States argued that lead was safe and aggressively promoted its benefits. Despite the availability of safer alternatives to lead paint, such as zinc and titanium pigments, the lead industry (first organized under the “National Lead Institute” and later as the “Lead Industries Association” [LIA]) trade was a major political lobbyist and pushed lead pigments into millions of homes in the United States. The consumption of lead paint peaked in the 1940s and gradually declined in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1970s, lead paint was hardly sold, and it was officially banned in 1978.10,11 The regulatory history of lead reflects actions (frequently misaligned) from community activism, corporate lobbyists, scientific research, and policy approaches. 12
During the rapid contraction of the lead paint market in the mid-twentieth century, the LIA focused its efforts on promoting leaded gasoline. Leaded gasoline had been introduced in 1923 by the Ethyl Corporation, a company created by Standard Oil, Dupont, and General Motors, and a core member of the LIA. For most of the twentieth century, the Ethyl Corporation and LIA promoted a lead-based compound, tetra-ethyl lead, as a gasoline additive that could reduce inefficiencies in combustion engines. Although there were safer alternatives to lead, such as alcohol blends, the Ethyl Corporation and the LIA advertised leaded gasoline as a cheap and effective additive. The lead industries, through the work of corporate scientists, also cast doubt on public health studies showing the harm that lead exposure caused to children. As suburban developments and highways expanded during the postwar boom (enabling regular individual transport between suburban residential areas and cities where job opportunities were concentrated), the consumption of leaded gasoline soared, reaching its peak in 1970. By one estimate, in the early 1980s, about 330,000 metric tons of lead were reaching the atmosphere every year. The dominant source of those emissions was leaded gasoline, which was responsible for over 240,000 metric tons of annual air emissions. 13 A large portion of these emissions arrived in the soil and did not decay or decompose over time. 14
The early science of lead focused on heavy metal poisoning as an occupational hazard. The work of Alice Hamilton, for instance, centered on the damaging effects of lead on the bodies of workers in lead-related refineries and factories. These studies raised questions about the safety of lead products used in the household, such as toys, cans, and paint, contributing to extending the concern about lead poisoning beyond occupational hazards. With the introduction of leaded gasoline in 1923, however, lead became an issue of environmental public health at a national and global scale. Thanks to the pressure exerted by scientists and clinicians who raised the alarm about the dangers of introducing a poisonous substance in combustion engines, the U.S. Public Health Service held hearings with public health experts and representatives of the LIA. Many of the scientists who presented evidence on the safety of leaded gasoline were funded by LIA. 15 The U.S. government nonetheless approved leaded gasoline in 1923, and the Ethyl Corporation was granted permission to produce leaded gasoline at a large scale. Following the federal approval of leaded gasoline, public health scholars shifted their focus to address lead as a public health issue worthy of consideration at community and national levels. 16
This environmental approach to lead science flourished in the 1960s amid social justice mobilizations and the consolidation of the environmentalist movement. The Civil Rights Movement, mutual-aid organizations, and revolutionary grassroots movements advocated for a holistic approach to social justice that addressed poverty, housing precarity, racial discrimination, and labor exploitation as interconnected issues. 17 For these groups, peeling lead-paint chips in substandard housing in the inner cities, which caused disproportionate levels of poisoning in Black children, was also an issue of segregation and chronic deinvestment in neighborhoods of color. The environmentalist movement was also making headway within national policy circles, and the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. Following the standards set by the Clean Air Act, the emissions produced by vehicles using leaded gasoline became extremely concerning among public health scholars. Between 1960 and 1990, a rich variety of studies documented the amount, extent, and potential effects of contamination produced by leaded gasoline. Among other findings, these studies showed that leaded gasoline was the primary source (between 66% and 86%) of lead emissions into the atmosphere. 18
In the 1980s, the environmental approach to lead science was relegated in favor of treating individual cases of poisoning. One reason for this change was that leaded gasoline was banned in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, which shifted focus from the study of vehicle emissions toward research on the existing stock of houses with lead paint. This shift was likely also a response to the documented efforts by the LIA to dismiss the environmental science of leaded gasoline and direct attention to lead paint, which had not been a source of revenue for the lead industry for decades. 19 In the 1980s, there were over 16 federal agencies tasked with collecting data and regulating lead in food, paint, gasoline, air, water, and federal housing.20,21,22 The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and American Academy of Pediatrics issued reports including numerous sources of lead poisoning beyond paint, including soil and water. These reports concluded that lead-based paint hazard (dust/chips) was the major source and should be removed from the home, there was almost no regulation or requirement to address lead hazards. 23 Finally, institutional reforms at the national level reduced funding for public health agencies and weakened the regulatory power of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placing more responsibility on underfunded states. 24 As a result, public institutions deprioritized holistic studies of urban environments and directed their limited budgets to educational campaigns and post-facto treatment for poisoned children. 25
A secondary approach to lead exposure, which is still dominant today, prioritizes targeted blood testing and educational campaigns over preventative community-level assessment and remediation. The definition of “lead poisoning” that triggers a response still varies across the country, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only a few years ago stating that “no safe blood lead level in children exists”. With widely varying approaches within individual states, blood lead level screening covers only a relatively small percentage (44%) of children in the United States. 26 Although Medicaid requires healthcare providers to screen all young children for exposure, compliance to this mandate is sporadic. In California, only 27% of age-eligible children under the California’s Medicaid program (Medi-Cal) received adequate testing between 2009 and 2017. 27 Testing is sometimes followed up with health department home visits and remedial actions, but only on a case-by-case basis when funding is available, despite studies showing that no level of lead in the blood is safe. 28 In addition to this insufficient testing infrastructure, states have concentrated their funding on educational campaigns primarily focused on lead paint and consumable goods as the main sources of poisoning, even as evidence points to soil as a major pathway leading to lead poisoning. 29 These campaigns have proven to be deficient in addressing environmental health and issues at the community level. 30
CASE STUDIES
The case studies trace two community–academic partnerships whose projects emphasize the importance of understanding lead in the environment from a holistic perspective. By proactively testing multimedia (soil, water, dust, and food) potential lead exposure sources, these groups show a commitment to understanding lead contamination in a complex built environment, which is itself fraught with inequities and injustices. Drawing from critical understandings of environmental justice, these groups address the overlapping systems of oppression affecting the communities exposed to lead. In addition to environmental burdens, members of these communities may experience exposure to other pollutants, food insecurity, substandard and/or insecure housing, racial discrimination, and excessive policing. In their public comments to the Santa Ana General Plan, for instance, OCEJ advocated for tenant protections, worker cooperatives, and free healthcare services. The NWC distributes free food and water as nutrition and poverty are intertwined with lead poisoning. 31 By organizing and testing the lead hazards, these community-based projects tackle the root causes of lead poisoning by highlighting the inequitable distribution of lead contamination created by systemic housing inequality, oppressive infrastructural projects, and economic discrimination. As Patricia Flores, former executive director and now current board advisory of OCEJ, expressed at the 2024 Climate Resilience Nexus, “The same fossil fuel corporations that are driving the worst devastation of climate change around the world, that lobby for genocidal, imperialist wars across the Middle East and the Global South, are responsible for the poisoning of the most vulnerable members of our communities here in the United States. Our struggles are inextricably linked.” Place-based and historically grounded approaches, then, connect the issue of lead with climate justice and strengthen and expand the notion of environmental justice among academic partners.
Recurring themes in these case studies are (1) using science to organize, (2) shifting the power in favor of affected populations through knowledge and evidence, (3) mapping the harms to better define the problem and target the primary prevention interventions, and (4) collaborating to achieve policy change and remediation. The projects are summarized below:
Case study 1: ¡Plo-NO! Campaign
Context
The development of freeways and zoning laws in Santa Ana (CA) contributed significantly to environmental and health issues in the community. Freeway construction often bisected and isolated neighborhoods, while zoning laws permitted the establishment of toxic industries near residential areas. This combination led to high levels of lead contamination in the soil and increased health risks for residents. Santa Ana, once a thriving community, experienced decline due to these policies, which prioritized industrial development over the well-being of its inhabitants.
The project in Santa Ana was not initiated by either the academic partner or the community group, but rather arose from concerns about the extent of this environmental injustice and a community request for further research to understand the issue. In 2016–2017, Dr. Alana LeBron from UCI provided technical assistance, conducting descriptive statistics on OCEJ’s needs assessment survey of approximately 3000 residents in state-designated EJ communities in Orange County. Resident leaders wanted to use this data to come up with both policy proposals and community-based solutions to address the lead contamination. OCEJ hired local canvassers to connect with residents, enter the data, and discuss emerging findings. OCEJ used findings from this survey to guide their priority areas. Of note, lead did not emerge as a concern. In 2017, an investigative journalist, Yvette Cabrera, brought attention to contemporary levels of lead in Santa Ana. In 2017, Alana participated in a retreat with another colleague at UCI (Abby Reyes), the OCEJ founding director, and an adult ally with Jóvenes Cultivando Cambios (Youth Cultivating Change, or JCC). The retreat focused on relationship-building and envisioning possibilities for collaborations rooted in working toward deep and lasting fundamental change. At this retreat, Alana, Yenni, and Abel discussed Yvette Cabrera’s recent report (which had just come out) and the city’s/county’s response to resident concerns. Following a series of discussions, residents commissioned a comprehensive assessment of soil lead that would withstand concerns that the health department raised (e.g., health department critiqued the portable X-ray fluorescence [XRF] device that Yvette used). A partnership was formed with JCC, a youth urban gardening and composting group, to lead the data collection efforts and lend their perspectives to the conclusions and proposed solutions. This resulted in OCEJ developing an interdisciplinary research project collaboration (called ¡Plo-NO! Campaign) with UCI to comprehensively test the soil and explain the sources of lead contamination. 32
Partnership infrastructure development
Throughout the community–academic collaboration, the ¡Plo-NO! team treated each party as equal partners with respect and cultural sensitivity. Community partners are involved in interpreting results and writing papers. Further, academic partners helped community organizations to (1) write grants and receive extramural funding, (2) build capacities to conduct new studies, and (3) support advocacy by providing scientific evidence. In addition, academic partners include community organizations as multiple primary investigators or co-investigators in their grant proposals, ensuring that the community partners receive adequate funding to conduct community-based research effectively.
The research questions were community-driven from the onset, only refined and supplemented with the literature and an understanding of the lead landscape. Reflecting our power analysis and the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Owenership (CE2O) framework, we design and participate in any engagement with policy makers and the health department with the understanding that residents are the true experts in this area—with respect to the issue, magnitude, and solutions. Both academic partners and our community leaders critically reflect on when and how our voices can be supportive, while also centering community perspectives and taking care to not enhance vulnerability.
Activities
This multiyear initiative measured lead in soil using in-field portable XRF coupled with source apportionment analysis to capture the alarming extent of the soil-lead crisis in Santa Ana. The campaign found that soil pollution was disproportionately affecting census tracts that were majority Latinx and low-income residents. 33 In addition, the project illuminated the sources of pollution and estimated that leaded gasoline was the most likely and most prominent contributor to current soil pollution levels in that area. 34
As part of ¡Plo-NO!, researchers and community advocates have created GIS maps, posters, a podcast series, short documentary films, and a comic book. As part of the bioremediation campaign, the group is also distributing seed balls with educational material and organizing workshops to train local soil practitioners. By combining different kind of media, the group is able to reach targeted segments of the population (i.e., comic books for teens, residential visits for senior population).
The OCEJ community–academic partnerships bring close attention to local histories of exploitation and, therefore, connect past struggles with contemporary ones. The ¡Plo-NO! Campaign’s study of the sources of lead contamination in Santa Ana brought community activists into conversation with historians who conducted archival research and contributed with an analysis of historical roads and the evolution of the urban footprint during the twentieth century. 35 This work linked contemporary pollution levels with the historical development of leaded gasoline.
Policy changes and secondary outcomes
The ¡Plo-NO! Campaign met with Santa Ana city officials to discuss the issue of soil lead and other environmental justice concerns. ¡Plo-NO! presented itself as a united community–academic front in a series of roundtable discussions with the city of Santa Ana. It has also worked directly with city council members. Through these conversations, the ¡Plo-NO! Campaign succeeded in adding language to Santa Ana’s General Plan with specific commitments to remediate soil-lead contamination, provide access to free blood lead testing and health care for lead-burdened communities, prioritize use of bioremediation to address soil-lead contamination, create remediation jobs with union pay for Santa Ana residents, and ensure that residents can remain in remediated neighborhoods through rent control and tenant protections. In addition, the city agreed to ¡Plo-NO! Campaign’s and other campaigns’ proposal to create an Environmental Justice city staff position and an Environmental Justice Standing Committee to oversee the implementation of these policies. The ¡Plo-NO! Campaign now works with Environmental Justice city officials and the Orange County Health Care Agency to put these policies into action.
During the covid pandemic, residents had limited bandwidth for ¡Plo-NO! given significant levels of trauma and suffering. We adapted our collaborative work especially after learning many residents expressed concern for the impact of lead on their health. This led to the next phase of our work (I-CLEAN).
Case study 2: Newark Water Coalition’s Mobile Lead Testing Unit
Context
The city of Newark is the most populated city in the state with a quarter of the population living below the federal poverty line. 36 Newark is home to many industries, resulting in environmental toxic contamination in soil, air, water, and many brownfield sites. 37 The most prominent example of lead poisoning was the 2016 Newark water lead crisis that involved high levels of lead contamination in the city’s drinking water, primarily affecting low-income and historically underserved communities, which highlighted severe deficiencies in the management and maintenance of the city’s aging water infrastructure. NWC was formed in response to the Newark Water Crisis, by distributing food, water, and other emergency services to folks. The NWC’s mission is to cultivate a self-determined local, national, and international community of people who recognize the connection between systemic environmental racism and capitalism.
In 2020, the NWC wanted to proactively test for lead in homes across Newark and initiated a partnership with researchers at UCB and conducted a multisource, household-scale analysis of lead exposure in Newark (NJ). 38 NWC aims to find root causes of persistent issues and places community at the forefront for finding solutions. In Newark, this project situates the roots of lead poisoning within a history of uneven capitalist development and environmental racism.
Partnership infrastructure development
NWC desired to conduct in-situ field measurements of lead exposure, and their work was coupled with Bavisha Kalyan’s graduate research project. To share decision-making power and leverage each other’s strengths, the research questions were codeveloped with cowritten grant proposals and methods development. Trust and relationship building is continuous and requires critical reflections, hard conversations, and placing community first. The collaboration created a Mobile Testing Unit, which visited homes to document the pervasive presence of lead paint as well as high levels of lead in soil and indoor dust, educate families on preventative lead poisoning steps, and demonstrate how community-based participatory research can be community-driven and led. 39 The Mobile Lead Testing Unit itself empowered NWC with methods, equipment, trainings, and data analysis for lead risk assessments. The work was published, 40 and the article was coauthored by the entire team, including the youth members.
Activities
With the NWC steering the research, a team of their members were trained on lead risk assessment techniques, measured and collected samples, provided immediate, on-site analysis and results to residents, helping them understand their exposure levels, and facilitated multiple educational workshops and distributed information on reducing lead exposure. A lead risk assessor from the community, Danny Feliciano, joined the team, refined methods, and trained folks. The findings from the project indicate that soil-lead concentrations are alarmingly high (up to 8252 ppm in the soil, and 1700 µg/ft2 in dust). Lead dust concentrations were found to be high regardless of construction year or the presence of lead-based paint, suggesting a need for more rigorous lead testing at the community level, irrespective of building age. The testing unit also highlighted homes and neighborhoods that are extremely lead-contaminated and should be targeted for lead prevention education and remediation. While in participants’ homes, the team connected participants with another local organization who can complete remediation at no cost to the homeowner. Tenants were contacted by members of the NWC and invited to attend open house law clinics (Rutgers University Law School partnership) at the office to support them in their tenants’ rights. The NWC and UCB presented a united front when presenting the results, including coauthoring a peer-reviewed publication, presenting findings at academic and EPA conferences, and cowriting additional grant proposals.
Policy changes and secondary outcomes
The NWC’s project has strengthened its capacity for policy advocacy in Newark by providing quantitative and qualitative data, organizing strength, and in-house resources (e.g., multilanguage educational brochures, referrals to certified lead risk assessors, and a report highlighting the household potential of lead hazards). In addition, the project inspired local universities to (re)prioritize community-based science with a renewed focus on lead exposure. The NWC also recognized the gap of community-led remediation efforts, particularly with EPA lead assessor certification programs, which are only based in Southern New Jersey and require an associate’s degree to obtain. The NWC aims to create a lead assessor certification program, which would be the first of its kind in North Jersey. This program aims to lower educational prerequisites to enable individuals from Newark, even those with only a high school diploma, to participate and potentially qualify for certification, in turn allowing them to be hired as lead risk assessors. The NWC also presented at an EPA open public hearing, demonstrating multifaceted benefits of community-engaged work in their community, such as supporting youth members in their STEM careers. As the literature shows, these community-level and historically framed approaches to lead poisoning are needed to achieve environmental justice. 41
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
One of the main challenges that these partnerships face when addressing lead in the environment is coordinating actions at multiple governmental scales. The issue of polluted soil, water pipes, and housing is usually managed at the municipal level. The first obstacle that these groups encounter when dealing with city governments is that their administration is not homogenous and, while some of its branches may be supportive of primary prevention strategies, others may block these interventions. As Maya Cheav, organizer with OCEJ, explained, “… we have a fairly good relationship with the city, but you know the city is so big. So even though we work with certain departments or certain people, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is on our side.” 42 One example of this contradictory behavior in the city government was the fact that it supported bioremediation strategies during discussions about the city’s General Plan, and yet it blocked the implementation of a pilot program in a city plot and proceeded to use the conventional dig and dump method (i.e., extracting lead-contaminated soil and dumping it at designated toxic waste sites). Ultimately, the burden usually falls on the community to coordinate action at the local level among the different parties. As Cheav explained, “I think it’s really great that we’re collaborating, but it also is frustrating. And you know that a lot of the burden is on us and other community-based organizations to do some of that front work, especially since we’re such a small nonprofit. We have like 6 staff members, like when we’ll talk about bioremediation, and they’re kinda like great. So you know, let’s find some equipment for that or something. But it’s usually kind of on us.” 43
Given limited institutional support, these groups struggle to build cross-sector coalitions at state and national levels to expand their funding opportunities. While OCEJ has built strategic alliances with local neighborhood and youth organizations, such as GREEN-Madison Park Neighborhood Association and Jovenes Cultivando Cambios (Youth Cultivating Changes), this organization is yet to collaborate more strongly with groups operating at state and national levels. The NWC has a supportive network of lead-focused organizations and institutions regionally, nationally, and internationally; however, these partnerships still leave NWC outside of traditional environmental health campaigns. In 2022, a member of a lead prevention steering committee in New Jersey stated that “we’re still siloed, everybody’s still doing their own little thing… so if I can marry the community groups with the larger organizations and create some kind of symbiotic relationship there. I think that’s the goal, right, is to get them to do a better job of supporting [each other].” 44 Achieving a united front against lead remains a central goal of these local organizations and motivated in part the production of this piece of writing. 45
The community-based approach has also contributed to moving the policy agenda toward primary prevention. A central criticism of the dominant approach to lead prevention is that it does not focus on eliminating the root causes of lead poisoning. Instead, public health agencies conduct blood testing and perform ad-hoc interventions on children who are already poisoned with lead. This strategy, which scholars in public health call “secondary prevention,” does not align with the mission of environmental justice organizations advocating for healthy living and working environments. As Anthony Diaz, the NWC director, stated, “The Newark Water Coalition’s mission is to cultivate a self-determined local, national, and international community of people who recognize the connection between systemic environmental racism and capitalism. Secondary prevention puts the responsibility on the individual instead of the system. NWC’s work is intersectional and focuses on finding the root causes while placing community at the forefront for finding solutions.” Moreover, Patricia Flores, OCEJ’s executive director, referred to the conventional approach to addressing lead poisoning as a mechanism of neglect and control: “Well, it’s like that old school public health perspective that populations are to be controlled and contained rather than like helping [with] issues [of] wellness within their own communities.” 46
The two partnerships examined here have shifted research agendas in favor of interdisciplinary and historical approaches. They have also informed policy and prioritized solutions at the community level, such as bioremediation, free soil-testing services, and tenant protections, which have the potential of being more effective than individual-level interventions. Of note, both projects worked with youth, and as a result, youth from the impacted neighborhoods who participated in the project became published academic partners before attending (or even attending) a four-year university and ensured that our actions to address the crisis reflected the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community. For next steps, we will continue cocreated, interdisciplinary, and intersectional approaches to lead poisoning prevention and seeking out funding which allows the flexibility to meet the ongoing needs of community-based organizations. Finally, the historical nature of the struggles in which the issue of environmental lead is embedded necessitates intersectional coalitions with labor centers, unions, Indigenous advocacy groups, and climate justice organizations.
Footnotes
AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
Writing—original draft: J.M.R. and B.K. Writing—review and edit: A.D., P.F., M.C., D.C.B., A.G., A.H., A.J.-L., T.S., M.C., A.M.W.L., J.W.
AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No competing financial interests exist.
FUNDING INFORMATION
No funding was received for this article.
1
National Academy of Sciences, Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other Sensitive Populations. (National Academy Press, 1993).
2
National Academy of Sciences, Measuring Lead Exposure.
3
National Academy of Sciences, Measuring Lead Exposure; Charles. Xintaras, Impact of Lead-Contaminated Soil on Public Health, Analysis Paper (Atlanta, GA: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Dept. of Public Health, 1992).
4
Katrina Smith Korfmacher, Bridging Silos: Collaborating for Environmental Health and Justice in Urban Communities (The MIT Press, 2019).
6
Juan Manuel Rubio, Shahir Masri, et al., “Use of Historical Mapping to Understand Sources of Soil-Lead Contamination: Case Study of Santa Ana, CA,” Environmental Research 212 (September 1, 2022): 113478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.113478; Shahir Masri et al., “Social and Spatial Distribution of Soil Lead Concentrations in the City of Santa Ana, California: Implications for Health Inequities,” Science of The Total Environment 743 (November 15, 2020): 140764. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140764; Shahir Masri et al., “Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metal Contamination at the Census Tract Level in the City of Santa Ana, CA: Implications for Health and Environmental Justice,” Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, May 6, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1039/D1EM00007A. Schütz et al. “Civic Bioremediation: Building a Network for Soil Practitioners.” YouTube, uploaded by Tim Schütz, May 10, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tZfiOTeCA&ab
7
“Childhood Lead Exposure in New Jersey Annual Report” (New Jersey Department of Health, Office of Local Public Health, Childhood Lead Program, 2021).
8
9
At UC Berkeley, IRB approval was granted for semi-structured and informal (CPHS Protocol Number: 2021–11-14840. At UCI, the study was exempted: IRB: #3690 The Science and Art of Community-University Engagement.
10
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, “‘Cater to the Children’: The Role of the Lead Industry in a Public Health Tragedy, 1900–1955,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 1 (January 2000): 36–46. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.90.1.36; David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children (University of California Press, 2014). 
11
12
Berney, Barbara. “Round and Round It Goes.”
13
Air Quality Criteria for Lead (Final Report, 1986), vol. 3 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1986). https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NCEA&dirEntryID=32647; National Academy of Sciences, Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other Sensitive Populations. (National Academy Press, 1993).
14
Air Quality Criteria for Lead (Final Report, 1986), vol. 2 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1986). https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NCEA&dirEntryID=32647; David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children (University of California Press, 2014). ; National Academy of Sciences, Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other Sensitive Populations. (National Academy Press, 1993).
15
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, “‘Cater to the Children’: The Role of the Lead Industry in a Public Health Tragedy, 1900–1955,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 1 (January 2000): 36–46,
16
“Alice Hamilton and the Development of Occupational Medicine,” American Chemical Society, accessed January 18, 2022. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/alicehamilton.html; United States Public Health Service, “Proceedings of a Conference to Determine the Whether or Not There Is a Public Health Question in the Manufacture, Distribution, or Use of Tetraethyl Lead Gasoline,” Public Health Bulletin, no. 158 (1925).
17
Prominent examples or organizations addressing lead poisoning through a holistic perspective on social justice include Young Lords in Harlem, “barefoot doctors,” El Puente in New York City, the Rochester Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning. Katrina Smith Korfmacher, Bridging Silos: Collaborating for Environmental Health and Justice in Urban Communities (The MIT Press, 2019).
18
Air Quality Criteria for Lead (Final Report, 1986), vol. 2 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1986) https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NCEA&dirEntryID=32647
19
20
22
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, “‘Cater to the Children’: The Role of the Lead Industry in a Public Health Tragedy, 1900–1955,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 1 (January 2000): 36–46.
23
24
25
Howard W. Mielke, “Lead in the Inner Cities: Policies to Reduce Children’s Exposure to Lead May Be Overlooking a Major Source of Lead in the Environment,” American Scientist 87, no. 1 (1999): 62–73; Mielke H W and Reagan P L, “Soil Is an Important Pathway of Human Lead Exposure.,” Environmental Health Perspectives 106, no. suppl 1 (February 1, 1998): 217–229. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.98106s1217; David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children (University of California Press, 2014).
26
27
The mandatory testing ages for the state of California are 1 and 2. This narrow screening criterion excludes older children and adults and further deepens the lack of testing at the community level.
28
The threshold for interventions, however, is usually unacceptably high. Although the threshold varies across states (3 µg/dL or 5 µg/dL are common), public health research has shown that no levels of lead in blood are safe; see Cory-Slechta, Deborah A. “Low Level Lead Exposure Harms Children: A Renewed Call for Primary Prevention,” 2012, 1–65.
29
30
“Childhood Lead Levels: Millions of Children in Medi-Cal Have Not Received Required Testing for Lead Poisoning” (California State Auditor, January 2020). https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2019-105/index.html; Korfmacher, Bridging Silos; Berg, Kevin, Stephanie Kuhn, and Mike Van Dyke. “Spatial Surveillance of Childhood Lead Exposure in a Targeted Screening State: An Application of Generalized Additive Models in Denver, Colorado.” Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 23 (2017): S79–S92.
31
32
Cabrera, Yvette, “Urban Children Are Playing in Toxic Dirt,” accessed March 10, 2021. https://archive.thinkprogress.org/urban-children-are-playing-in-toxic-dirt-41961957ff23/; Shahir Masri et al., “Social and Spatial Distribution of Soil Lead Concentrations in the City of Santa Ana, California: Implications for Health Inequities,” Science of The Total Environment 743 (November 15, 2020): 140764.
33
The majority of residents in this area identify as Latina/o/x (77.3%), followed by Asian (11.4%) and white (9.4%), with a relatively high proportion (45.2%) of residents being immigrants. “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States,” accessed March 13, 2024. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045223. For details on the distribution of soil lead vis-a-vis socio-demographic indicators, see: Shahir Masri et al., “Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metal Contamination at the Census Tract Level in the City of Santa Ana, CA: Implications for Health and Environmental Justice,” Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, May 6, 2021.
34
35
Rubio et al., “Use of Historical Mapping to Understand Sources of Soil-Lead Contamination.”
37
38
Bavisha Kalyan et al., “Community Scientists of the Newark Water Coalition.”
39
Key, Kent D., Debra Furr-Holden, E. Yvonne Lewis, Rebecca Cunningham, Marc A. Zimmerman, Vicki Johnson-Lawrence, and Suzanne Selig. “The Continuum of Community Engagement in Research: A Roadmap for Understanding and Assessing Progress.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action 13, no. 4 (2019): 427–434.
40
Bavisha Kalyan et al., “Community Scientists of the Newark Water Coalition.”
41
Emily A. Benfer et al., “Health Justice Strategies to Eradicate Lead Poisoning: An Urgent Call to Action to Safeguard Future Generations,” Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020 2019): 146–209.
42
Cheav, Maya, Interview about City-level Challenges, March 1, 2024.
43
Cheav, Maya, Interview.
44
Newark Institutional Stakeholder, Interview about Lead Prevention Strategies and Challenges, December 20, 2022.
45
46
Patricia Flores, Interview about City-Level Challenges, March 1, 2024.