Background Lead is one of the many harsh metals and toxic chemical compounds in our environment. It can be found in many parts of our environment including the air we breathe, soil water and even inside of our homes. It wasn’t until 1978 where the US banned the residential use of Lead-based paints. This was primarily due to the paint peeling and cracking over time inside of the home, and can leave paint chips. In 1996, the US banned the sale of leaded gasoline for vehicles with some exceptions including aircraft, farming equipment and marine engines.
It was found that lead has a significant negative impact on our health, which includes brain and central nervous system damage, compromising other vital organs and systems such as kidneys, lungs and cardiovascular system. It has also been known to cause delays in cognitive development and growth which puts young children at high risk of disease when they are exposed. Although there are countless efforts to reduce exposure, lead remains a significant issue in the United States. This dashboard will focus on the risk of lead exposure in the Southern California Region which I have specified as the counties of Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.
In order to see compare the distributions between the select counties in Southern California, here are box plots that demonstrate the risk of lead exposure throughout the county
While the boxplots are helpful to compare the average risk between the counties, we want to be able to see where those high risk and low risk areas are located geographically. Let’s generate a heat map demonstrating the risk:
As you can see in the county of Los Angeles, specifically in the Downtown area and South Los Angeles area, there is a saturated area where the risk of lead exposure is very high. According to the CDC, there are over 1 million housing units in the county and 80% of which were built before 1980 - a time where lead paint was very common. The Los Angeles Department of Public Health (LADPH) has efforts and programs to reduce lead exposure, including the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program which aims to prevent and control exposures to children.
A report back in August 2024 stated that there was high traces of lead found in the tap water in Watts, a local area in South LA with history of environmental racism. Marginalized communities face the highest disease and pollution burden and these areas of Los Angeles are no exception. There are methods of prevention that individuals can take such as running tap water for 30 seconds before consumption, eating foods rich in calcium and iron, and regular blood-lead screening tests.
The data used in this dashboard was the CalEnviroScreen (CES) 4.0 which contains data on environmental exposure and health outcome markers and made possible by the Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment (OEHHA). Here is the complete dataset when we filter for the Southern California counties: