Washington State Department of Health, Vox Media, & PolicyMap

Description:

Lead based paint was banned in 1978, but the risk of lead exposure persists. The Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH) developed an index for lead exposure risk that considers age of housing and poverty as primary risk factors. Vox Media worked with WSDOH to apply the lead exposure risk index nationally. PolicyMap applied the Vox Media methodology to the 2016-2020 American Community Survey (ACS) data on poverty rates and age of housing stock. Lead exposure risk due to age of housing is estimated using the number of houses of in a given age range multiplied by the lead exposure risk for houses of that age range. Lead exposure risk due to poverty is estimated using the number of people with incomes less than 125% of the federal poverty level divided by the number of income-earning people in a given census tract; the higher the proportion of income-earners in or near poverty, the higher the estimated lead risk. A multivariate statistical analysis on the relationship between age of housing, poverty, and blood lead levels (BLL) in young children published by the CDC in 2013 — combined with data on lead-based paint prevalence in US housing units by age from a 2002 study — were used to weight the housing age and poverty variables.

PolicyMap suppressed data for census tracts with more than fifty percent of the population living in group quarters.