Pennsylvania
The State of Pennsylvania received $500,000 through cooperative agreement EH21-2102 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in FY 2022. The funds address childhood lead poisoning prevention and surveillance programmatic activities being conducted from September 30, 2022 to September 29, 2023.
The strategies focus on
- Ensuring blood lead testing and reporting
- Enhancing blood lead surveillance
- Improving linkages to recommended services
To learn more about these efforts in Pennsylvania, contact the program below.
Pennsylvania Department of Health
Child and Adult Health Services
625 Forster Street, Room 1000
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Phone: 717-772-2762
Pennsylvania Re-Establishes Sharing Childhood Lead Data with CDC
Pennsylvania was not able to submit childhood blood lead data to CDC from mid-2015 through March 2018 after a software change disabled the data transmission process. Therefore, visitors to websites managed by the Pennsylvania Lead Surveillance Program and the CDC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program would not get an accurate and up-to-date picture of the burden of childhood lead exposure in Pennsylvania. This was particularly unfortunate in a state with several lead-related industries, Superfund sites, and a high proportion of older housing (a known source of lead).
The Pennsylvania childhood lead program worked with their IT group to rebuild the data extraction and transmission process to enable the data transmission process. On March 30, 2018, Pennsylvania began quarterly submissions as a newly funded CDC EH17-1701 recipient. Pennsylvania was able to fill the 3-year data gap and continues to submit current data to CDC.
As a result of reestablishing the sharing of childhood lead surveillance data with CDC, Pennsylvania strengthened surveillance of childhood lead poisoning in the state. This will improve data usage, leading to greater identification of geographic areas and populations at high-risk for lead exposure and an increased ability to target interventions to high-risk geographic areas and populations.
Funding for this work was made possible in part by [NUE2EH001369] from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.