With help from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a new grant has been approved to help educate and eliminate lead poisoning in rural homes of Northwest Ohio.

Gary Silverman and Hailu Kassa, of the University’s College of Health and Human Services, are leading the effort to make citizens of Northwest Ohio counties more aware of the dangers of lead poisoning to homes in any environment.

A USEPA grant of $228,000 was handed out to start the project, building on earlier work funded by a $49,000 grant from the Ohio EPA’s Environmental Education Fund. Both grants are focusing on educating residents on how to lower levels of lead poisoning in their homes.

Part of the grant is meant for communities to receive training from the counties in lead poisoning awareness removal, Silverman said.

Ideally, a leader will be appointed within each community during the training process to help for future problems. The people targeted, but not limited to, are pediatricians, contractors and painters for knowledge of the dangers of lead and the harm it can cause – especially to children.

“[The grant] is to have people become educated about their surroundings,” Silverman said. “We can educate people on how to educate themselves. It’s an inexpensive way to get a partial solution to a serious problem.”

After the initial effort to educate people about lead poisoning, it is the goal of the grant for residents of the community to be able to continue the ongoing project on their own.

Working for the Lucas County Health Department from 1994-2000, Kassa, along with 3 colleagues, published the article “Assessment of a Lead Management Program for Inner-City Children” in the June 2000 Journal of Environmental Health, showing the significance of lead poisoning and the harm it can do to children.

The amount of money spent on taking care of children who have been infected with lead is very high.

The estimated costs for pediatric diseases in U.S. children, lead poisoning accounts for $43.4 billion out of a total $54.9 billion, with cancer, asthma and neurobehavioral disorder accounting for the rest, according to Kassa’s research. These amounts account for direct cost of health care, rehabilitation and lost productivity.

Kassa, along with Silverman, hopes the project takes off and can spread to other areas, not just to places around Bowling Green.

“It is a good start,” Kassa said. “There are other counties with similar issues and hopefully [the program can] expand this in the future.”

Lead paint was widely used to paint the interiors and exteriors of homes before 1978 and can contaminate areas where children are frequently around, according to the National Safety Council.

By crawling around on the floor of homes where lead contaminated dust accumulates and settles on objects such as toys, children can become contaminated by putting their hands and other objects into their mouth.

Lead paint can also be found in popular toys.

Mattel, a popular toy company, recalled 967,000 toys because the products are covered in lead paint.

By educating parents on personal hygiene, Kassa hopes to decrease the number of children suffering from lead poisoning.

Proper nutrition, handwashing and good personal hygiene are important for decreasing the risk of being infected, Kassa said.

Some may wonder why this program is extending its efforts to rural areas, where in cities the problem can be more excessive in quantity.

While city homes have the similar lead problems, they already have or will continue to have help cleaning up. Rural homes have not had this same opportunity.

Silverman and Kassa have previously, and are continuing to work with the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department and the LaGrange Development Corp. to identify high risk areas in cities.

“With farm houses, there isn’t enough of a problem to focus on those people,” Silverman said, referring to the lack of help rural homes have received. “Now we are trying to move to the rural area.”

Funding and limited staff are the main reasons as to why more projects like this one have not been done in rural areas.

Even though there is an increase of funds given to help the cause, there is still a need for more resources to be completely removed lead from homes in any environment.