Lead Exposure in Kids: Prevention Starts at Home – PediaCast 616

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Description

Angela Mingo, Alicia Smith, and Candace Buckley visit the studio as we consider lead exposure in children. This toxic metal often hides in homes, where it can leave a lasting impact on health and wellness. We explore strong community coalitions built to make a difference for kids. We hope you can join us!

Topics

Protecting Kids from Lead in the Home
Community Coalitions that Work

Guests

Angela Mingo
Vice President, Development and Corporate Affairs
Nationwide Children’s Hospital – Toledo

Alicia Smith
Executive Director
Junction Coalition

Candace Buckley
Executive Director
Toledo Lead Resource Center

Links

 

Episode Transcript

[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of PediaCast is brought to you by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the Junction Coalition, and Lead Safe Toledo.

[MUSIC]

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of PediaCast. We are a pediatric podcast for moms and dads.

This is Dr. Mike coming to you from the campus of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. We are in Columbus, Ohio. It’s episode 616.

We’re calling this one Lead Exposure in Kids. Prevention starts at home. I want to welcome all of you to the program.

We are so happy to have you with us. You know, lead exposure is something that many parents don’t think about until it becomes a problem. But here’s the thing.

Lead poisoning is entirely preventable, and it often starts in places that we consider safe, like our homes. Today, we are going to talk about lead abatement and prevention. And abatement just means taking care of the lead, so kids are not exposed to it.

We’re going to talk about what these things mean, why they matter, and how communities are working together to protect children before harm occurs. We’ll explore a powerful collaboration that is happening in Toledo, Ohio, where Nationwide Children’s Hospital is partnering with local organizations like the Junction Coalition and the Toledo Lead Resource Center to reduce lead exposure and build healthier environments for kids. Now, you may be thinking, what?

I don’t live in Toledo. I mean, most of our audience is not in Toledo, Ohio. But this is important to really put a magnifying glass on what is happening in Toledo and how they are making a difference for their communities.

And it may be a model that you and your community may really want to look at. If you’re a parent, you know, take some time to do some Google searches and see, do you have a lead resource center? Is this something that is being addressed in your neighborhood?

So, this is going to be lots of great information for folks everywhere. And of course, in our usual PediaCast fashion, we do have terrific guests joining us in the studio to discuss lead exposure. Angela Mingo is vice president of development and corporate affairs for Nationwide Children’s Hospital Toledo.

Alicia Smith is executive director of the Junction Coalition, and Candace Buckley is executive director of the Toledo Lead Resource Center. They will all be with us shortly. Before we get to them, I do want to remind you the information presented in every episode of our podcast is for general educational purposes only.

We do not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you’re concerned about your child’s health, be sure to call your health care provider. Also, your use of this audio program is subject to the PediaCast terms of use agreement, which you can find at PediaCast.org.

So, let’s take a quick break. We’ll get our guests settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about healthy homes, healthy kids and tackling lead in our communities. It’s coming up right after this.

[MUSIC]

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Angela Mingo is vice president of development and corporate affairs at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Toledo, where she leads community focused strategies that address the root causes of childhood health and wellness.

Alicia Smith is executive director of the Junction Coalition. This is an organization born from crisis and now leading the charge in environmental, social and economic justice in Toledo.

And Candace Buckley is executive director of the Toledo Lead Resource Center. Which is a community hub connecting families, professionals and systems to prevent lead exposure in the Toledo region. Together, they are working to create safer homes and healthier futures for children in the Toledo area.

Before we dive into our topic, let’s offer a warm PediaCast welcome to our guests, Angela Mingo, Candace Buckley and Alicia Smith. Thank you all so much for stopping by today.

[Angela Mingo]
Dr. Mike, thank you so much for having us.

[Alicia Smith]
Such a pleasure to be with you, Dr. Mike.

[Candace Buckley]
Glad to be here today!

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, we are really glad that you guys are all here as well. This is such an important topic. And I wanted to start, Angela, with you, which is sort of the big picture.

Why is lead exposure such an important issue that families ought to be thinking about?

[Angela Mingo]
Well, Dr. Mike, we know that lead exposure is a major child health issue because even very low levels can cause permanent harm. In children, exposure is linked to lower IQ, learning disabilities, attention and behavior problems. And we also know that lead exposure can reduce academic achievement.

This effect can impact children into adulthood. And most importantly, what we know is that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. Children are at higher risk oftentimes because, differently from adults, they absorb lead more efficiently.

Their brains and bodies are still developing and common childhood behaviors like hand-to-mouth activity, touching your face, playing in dirt and then touching one’s face or mouth can increase exposure. Lead also affects other body systems, which contribute to anemia, slowed growth, hearing problems and kidney damage. And these are the dynamics of ongoing exposure.

I would share that from a public health perspective; lead exposure is especially concerning because it’s preventable yet unequally distributed. Children living in older housing, children living in under-resourced communities or areas with aging water infrastructure face higher risk. And this leads to health inequities.

So, in short, lead exposure threatens children’s lifelong health, learning and well-being, which is why it remains a critical priority in pediatrics and in public health.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. So very important.

At Nationwide Children’s Toledo, how have you sort of approached this? You know, you talk about a population health perspective. What does that look like when a hospital is engaging with the community to try to find solutions to a problem?

[Angela Mingo]
For Nationwide Children’s Toledo, addressing lead exposure, we do that not only just by focusing on the individual child, but on the systems, the environments, the communities where exposure occurs. Our approach recognizes that lead poisoning is preventable. It’s deeply connected to housing conditions, and it’s rooted in longstanding inequities.

So, we really look at our approach by focusing on several different integrated strategies. One is focusing primarily on prevention through housing and environmental change. So rather waiting for children to have elevated blood levels, Nationwide Children’s Toledo prioritizes prevention and preventing exposure before it happens.

This includes supporting lead safe and lead-abated housing, especially in older homes with high-risk housing stock, partnering with community organizations and local government to reduce lead hazards in homes. So, looking at things such as paint, dust, the soil around the home. What is happening with the water systems in neighborhoods?

And we use our data. We’re able to utilize data to identify high risk zip codes and census tracks and focus resources there. What’s critical and I think what’s most important for today’s discussion is building strong community relationships and strong partnerships.

The cornerstone of our Toledo strategy is collaboration. Working alongside organizations like the Toledo Lead Resource Center, like Junction Coalition, we know that this has long lasting impact on what we can do to educate and support families around the issue of lead exposure.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. Such great work. You mentioned the Junction Coalition.

Tell us about that partnership.

[Angela Mingo]
Junction Coalition Partnership is one that we are extremely proud of because what we aim to do through community partnerships is to look at how we can expand capacity versus duplicating efforts. And so, at Nationwide Children’s, what we offer at Nationwide Children’s Toledo is lead testing. We also offer lead education.

What Junction offers is boots on the ground. Those individuals who have longstanding, trusted relationships with residents who can meet them right where they live. And this is why this partnership is so critical to the work that we aim to do at Nationwide Children’s Toledo, because we know that the coalition, Junction Coalition, being a community-based organization, is deeply rooted not only in the neighborhood that they serve but rooted in the community at large.

So, they are a trusted partner not only for the hospital, but also for the greater community.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, you know, the work that you guys do, you did secure a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the U.S. government. Tell us about that grant and the support that they provide. And what is the goal of the work?

[Angela Mingo]
The CDC grant that was obtained was a joint partnership between the Junction Coalition and Nationwide Children’s Toledo. We jointly applied for the grant or submitted an application with the coalition, Junction Coalition being the lead applicant. Again, I reference that the goal is to expand capacity.

This was an opportunity to do just that. This was a grant that was tailor-made for a grassroots, community-based organization rather than a hospital to take the lead on supporting lead education locally. And so, through the CDC grant, Junction Coalition has been awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant.

That grant is focused on lead education, problem solving to make sure that families are not only educated about lead, but that families are able to have access to readily identifiable local resources so that if an exposure has occurred, they know who to contact and who to connect with to start to remediate that exposure.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. You know, when folks think about lead poisoning, especially in the region of the United States where Toledo hangs out, we think about Flint, Michigan and the water supply and the lead exposure that happened. Is that sort of thing an isolated incident or really should all communities be on the lookout for there being problems to try to get ahead of them sooner rather than later?

[Angela Mingo]
While we do have our issues with lead in Toledo, we know that the state of Ohio ranks high amongst states nationally for lead exposure and particularly lead exposure for children. So, this is a pervasive issue nationwide that not only are we trying to tackle this issue in Toledo, but through the CDC grant, we’re one of a series of different cities that are also addressing this issue.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. So, so very important and something that, like you said, you want to try to get ahead of this and not wait until kids have really high lead levels to react to it, but really to be proactive in terms of keeping our kids safe, especially when you think about the low levels of exposure that are needed to cause brain issues. And so, this is really something that’s important.

Alicia, tell us more about the Junction Coalition. You know, how did the organization begin and what is your mission?

[Alicia Smith]
Dr. Mike, Junction Coalition began with the water crisis of 2014, where we had microcystins known as harmful algal blooms in our water. And many of the community members were not informed or not aware. And the vulnerable community did not have the resources to provide families with what they needed at the time.

In partnership with the city of Toledo, Junction Coalition was thrust into action to support vulnerable communities, parents with children, nursing moms, elders, by making sure that they had water, making sure that they had first aid kits and information necessary for survival. What we have done in our community is worked with the community to decide what is our mission. And the mission of Junction is to provide a viable voice for community members in creating a sustainable community with a holistic perspective on creating a better quality of life for all residents.

And that’s not, as Angela said, not just in the Junction community, but across the community of Toledo.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. So, Junction is a smaller community within Toledo, is that correct?

[Alicia Smith]
Correct. We’re generally known as the old onyx.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
OK. And why was this such a pressing issue to get this support out for this particular neighborhood?

[Alicia Smith]
It was so important because most of our homes are built well before 1978. And as you know, any home built before 1978, with the aging infrastructure as it is, has exposure to high lead levels, whether it be in the paint, in the soil, the lead service lines that were in the homes, a host of opportunities for children to be exposed to lead and a lack of information that was provided to families to prevent that exposure. So, it was so very important to get this information because at the time, we had children with lead blood levels as high as 13 percent.

And working with the Lucas County Health Department, we were able to get that information out to families, make sure families had primary care physicians as well as pediatricians to provide that information and that support for testing and engagement. But families were just not aware of what they needed to do for their children zero to six and for some of those that were already exposed and often to their education, where we would see most of our children with IEPs, which are individual evaluation plans associated with cognitive disabilities. Yeah.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. You know, I love this so much. I mean, this is a true grassroots effort where the community members themselves are like, hey, we have a problem here and we want to, you know, make folks aware of it and what we can do to protect our kids and to be proactive.

And kudos to you and your group for the support and all the great things that you’re that you’re doing there in the Junction neighborhood. Your campaign called 419 Get the Lead Out. But what does that look like in action?

[Alicia Smith]
419 Get the Lead Out means that not just Junction Coalition alone, but through a great partnership and collaboration with Nationwide Children’s Hospital and our Toledo Lead Resource Center, us all coming together. There are a number of partners with the Toledo Lead Coalition that we all sit on a particular coalition to move this thing forward, to move 419 Get the Lead Out. And many of the families in our communities, we started in Junction the first year.

That first year was focused on zip codes, as Angela shared, 43607, 43604 and 43606. And we were strategic about how we informed our parents. Door to door canvassing was the first movement.

Then working with Toledo public schools and our charter schools, we were sending information home where parents could scan with their phones important facts about lead. There is zero amount of lead that is safe for human consumption and how those children are then connected to the school dependency pipeline through cognitive disabilities. And it’s all a public health concern.

Parents were in shock. They were saying, well, what do you mean? And then they began to think about their particular child who didn’t enjoy reading.

But why? Had issues of dyslexia. But why?

And once we began to provide layers of information associated with lead exposure, we didn’t leave it there. We work with other organizations such as Neighborhood Health Association, who’s also a part. First Church, which is also a part.

The churches, everyone just came out and began to work together in tandem. The one thing that Dr. Mornin-Smith said to me directly is, Alicia, if we’re going to get out and knock doors, do not leave a home without leaving the resources and information for that family to navigate to their health. And that is what we’ve done strategically.

And that’s what has been successful in getting our children tested, getting them the resources and making sure parents are educated.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. And the community is so lucky to have you guys being that voice among them. What are some practical steps that families everywhere can do right now to reduce the risk of lead exposure for their kids?

[Alicia Smith]
Certainly, the first thing that each family member should do is have their children tested. Nationwide Children’s Hospital is able to test. They should definitely reach out to their primary care physician, to their pediatrician, their pediatrician.

And if they’re on Medicaid, that is done at no cost directly. It’s free. Even a mother who has just had a child, a newborn, making sure that that child is tested immediately.

Many times, we don’t think, oh, well, how can a child be exposed? Parents are exposed. The mother with the unborn child is exposed to lead.

So, you want to get those things tested immediately. So the practical step is to, one, have your child tested, two, to make sure that you’re able to get onto the CDC Center for Disease Control website and get the toolkit or visit the Junctions website where the toolkit is available, as well as making sure that if you don’t know, reach out to the Toledo Resource Center and get all the Toledo Lead Resource Center and get all of the information. Yes, Junctions here as the navigation tool, the resource and information for our residents.

But this partnership takes every last one of us. One, have your child tested. It doesn’t matter if the child is over six years old.

Have your child tested.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
It’s an easy blood test and will give you lots of reassurance that everything’s OK. Now, some folks may say, well, I live in a house that is built after 1978. Think about all the places that your child goes.

You know, maybe they go to a daycare that was built before 1978 or a babysitter or grandparent’s house. And maybe you work or dad works in a place that has lead exposure.

[Alicia Smith]
That is so important that that is key. I almost jumped up and down when you said where parents work. The fact that parents are working and coming home, soil is transferred into the home, the parent’s clothing.

When they come home, they may hug the child, not knowing that there’s a transfer that takes place. So that is key. We right now have lead hip hop song out that actually talks about the lead in the windowsill, the lead at auntie’s house.

The child is going over to be with grandmother, but the home has not been tested nor abated. And these are all exposure points for that child, which many times we send our children out of love to a grandparent’s, auntie’s, aunt’s or uncle’s home, but not knowing that that child could be exposed at that point. And even as we worked with Detroit and Flint and we’ve had the opportunity to work with these communities, it was really profound in the schools, in the lead service lines.

It’s why we’ve worked so with the state of Ohio to receive 15.5 million dollars to have the lead service lines replaced for all of our daycares within those high-risk zip codes. So, yes, sir, you’re so right. The exposure points are immediate and they vary.

But getting your child tested helps to get that information out.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, what kind of impact have you seen in the Junction community from your work?

[Alicia Smith]
Oh, my goodness. We’ve seen such great impact, one with our parents now coming to us. And now that we have the Toledo Resource Center, we are able to point parents to even a greater resource.

Many times, our parents come, they’re fearful for what they may find out, unsure if their insurance will cover and support what they need to resolve some of these issues. If they’re living in a home that is exposed. And Dr. Mike, the scariest thing is we find that the home is not exposed. Then where is it coming from? And that’s the one thing that most of our parents say, stay with us, Ms. Alicia, don’t leave. Can Mr. Cliff, who is our housing manager and lead resource manager, can he come to the house, and we can walk through areas where the child has been and then we can go and get the help for some of those families. And many of those families were not in the Junction area. We had a great relationship. We have a great relationship with some of the lead abatement officers who have begun to abate Junction homes.

But then when we would go over to other areas in our second year in North Toledo, we found that some of those homes had not been abated. And then the third year of our grant, as Angela shared, it was three years. We were able to find that across the city of Toledo; it was an issue that had to be dealt with.

So, we worked with the public utilities to look at lead service lines and found that there was a lot of lead service lines that had not been replaced. That right now, today, we are replacing those service lines in partnership with the public utilities and families. Lead levels are beginning to reduce and those that are not reducing are informed on where it was coming from.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. And when you say lead service lines, we’re talking water from the water utility to the home that those were leaching lead into the water.

[Alicia Smith]
Correct.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Which is what was happening in Flint, Michigan as well. And so, this really is something that can affect any community. And unless you have a group like yourself who’s raising voices and creating awareness and coming up with policies and ways to fix the situation, it may not happen without those voices.

[Alicia Smith]
Yes, sir. And working with our federal organizations as well, this grant from the CDC, Center for Disease Control, opened opportunities for the US EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, to come to Toledo. So Nationwide Children’s Hospital did not just partner with Junction.

It made a complete partnership and collaboration across the country. It was a Toledo concern. Eleven other cities were selected for this particular grant.

But Toledo being within the Great Lakes and beginning to replace our lead service lines, the US EPA came in, provided filters for homes that had not been replaced yet, and education as well. In regard to lead exposure.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Candace, let’s take a little bit of a broader view and sort of move out of the Junction neighborhood. Although, as Alicia said, their work really has impacted beyond Junction because, you know, some kids, you find out that they’re exposed someplace else.

And then that, you know, opens up a need for abatement. But as we think about the entire Toledo community, you represent the Toledo Lead Resource Center. What is this organization and why was that created?

[Candace Buckley]
So, we are a private nonprofit organization that was created through strong advocacy through the Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition, of which both Angela and Alicia, all of us serve on. And so, what triggered the great need for this organization was our local lead ordinance moving forward from a place of strong advocacy over many years to actually moving into a place of enforcement. And so, as Alicia said, Nationwide and Junction Coalition did receive the CDC grant.

It has done so much great work in our community around awareness and education. And so, the foundation has been laid. And with our organization, we will continue to work collaboratively to elevate the need for support for this work in our community and meeting our residents throughout the entire region exactly where they are and making sure that they have the tools, the education and the practical steps to move towards a lead safe future.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. So, this is this is a really important piece of the equation that not only are we going to identify kids who are at risk and identify kids whose lead levels are high and we want to reduce the exposure to lead, we want to, you know, mitigate the effect of it in individual kids.

But you need a resource center that knows what to do, you know, what resources are available in the community and can guide families and health care providers on fixing the problem and has some maybe legal authority behind them to get stuff done that’s in the safety of communities and kids. So, for the Toledo-led resource center, what kind of services then do you provide for families and the micro communities within the greater Toledo region?

[Candace Buckley]
We provide education outreach, specifically bilingual. We do a lot here with our Hispanic and Latino community. In addition to some of the families that we’ve identified as well impacted in the Arab community and especially other communities throughout our region that have been historically disproportionately impacted by lead poisoning that our communities.

So, we do a lot of outreach with families of color throughout it is I would like to elevate a point that is gritty work part of the services we also provide is training and education and certification for lead professionals, risk assessors, lead abatement workers, lead clearance techs and RRP workers, renovation, repair and painting. We don’t have a strong workforce in our community to do the work on the homes. As Alicia stated earlier, we have a great need in our community.

There’s over 30,000 units that are in need of repair. And that is why, again, I want to go back to this collaboration. No one organization can do this work alone.

You know, over 80,000 or 80 percent of our housing stock built before 1978, currently over 3,400 kiddos are lead poisoned. Our work is as strong as it is only because of the collaboration and through that collaboration and partnership, which is one of the things that we do. And I would like to say we do very well.

Hence, this being on this call today, we continue to move things forward by promoting healthy homes and empowering knowledge and resources. Lastly, I would like to include policy advocacy. That is a big part of what we do collectively to make sure that we have strong policies to support the work that we’re doing so that we can sustain the work over time.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. And it is it’s such important work. And, you know, is this something that like most communities have a lead resource center or is this really unique to Toledo?

And we need more of these in individual communities across the country.

[Candace Buckley]
So, we I did spend some time with the Cleveland Lead Resource Center and Environmental Services. And that is a model that we look to as a city when we were looking at bringing on our resource center. And there are other organizations, not all specifically focused singularly on lead poisoning, but environmental services in its entirety.

I would say we are unique. I would say our partnerships are unique. This partnership that that is on this call today does extend into our local Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition effort.

We have legal represented in that we have community nonprofit organizations, the faith-based community. There is a strong our public school system is and soon to be our public housing authorities and contractors. And so, I would say that what we have is uniquely designed for our community, which is the right size fit to get the work done.

But it was modeled after the Cleveland Lead Resource Center and the Cleveland Lead Coalition. And as we continue to move forward, we hope that communities will look to us as yet another model that can be duplicated in other communities nationally throughout the United States.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. And you are open to contact from other communities to, you know, for them reaching out to find out how you’re doing things and how you’re creating these partnerships and really making a difference. So, folks out there, if you want to learn more, the Toledo Lead Resource Center is your place.

And I will put a link to their website in the show notes so everybody can find the Toledo Lead Resource Center. It’s all going to be important. You know, one thing that does come to mind is as we think about lead abatement, there often is a cost involved.

And it may be that families, you know, don’t have the resources to be able to repaint their home or to make sure that the service lines bringing water to their home are safe. And if it’s not, you know, getting that fixed, there’s a cost for sure. And then there’s also the issue of I might not own the home.

And, you know, there are renters and now we have to depend on landlords to provide a safe place for our kids. Is that something that the legal partnerships that you have in Toledo have to sometimes come into play?

[Candace Buckley]
Absolutely. And I would like to highlight our community does have the Lead Hazard Control Grant and the Lead Remediation Grant. And we are on track to abate between, I believe, 100 and 150 homes in our region.

And so, in addition to those funds, we are always looking to partner with corporate investors, our hospital systems and private donors to support leveraging those funds that have already been invested in our community to further expand the work. And as the Resource Center continues to grow, we do look to establish a local fund to help those homeowners, those landlords that want to get their properties tested and do the repairs to have some type of resource that they would be able to leverage against their own.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. Very important. Angela, as we as we wrap up, what are some key takeaways for parents and also, you know, community leaders who may be listening today?

What are some, you know, key takeaways and steps that really, we ought to all be taking?

[Angela Mingo]
Well, I think, Dr. Mike, you heard a lot from our partners today, from Alicia with the Junction Coalition and Candace with the Toledo-led Resource Center. And, you know, essentially, there are a couple of takeaways for parents listening today. One is that there is no safe level of lead for children.

Even small amounts can affect a child’s brain development, a child’s learning and behavior, and the effects can last a lifetime. Lead exposure often has no obvious symptoms. So, prevention matters.

Getting in front of parents and sharing information to parents, caregivers, guardians all matter to be proactive in that space. And that’s exactly what we’re aiming to do. Also, most lead exposure happens at home.

Older homes, especially as Candace shared, those homes built before 1978, before lead paint was banned. Those homes can contain lead in the paint, lead and dust, soil and water. And, you know, oftentimes I think that we think that children will, if they eat paint chips, that’s when the exposure occurs.

We know that it’s beyond eating and actually consuming paint chips. It’s everyday contact with lead dust. Something that simple can be and that small can be enough for a lead exposure amongst children.

Another key takeaway is that children, especially young children, are vulnerable. Babies and toddlers absorb lead more easily. And exposure can happen during critical periods of brain development, even before families know that there’s a problem.

We also know that lead exposure is preventable. Having children tested, learning how to reduce lead dust in homes, avoiding unsafe renovations can make a real difference. And when families are undergoing renovations to their homes, question becomes, is lead remediated as part of that renovation?

So, educating families and taking early action is critical. Safe housing is a part of health care, and that is something that we are deeply committed to at Nationwide Children’s Toledo. We see housing as a key part of child health.

We know that doctors can identify lead exposure, but preventing it means making sure that homes and neighborhoods are safe. And this is where our partners are leading in this collaboration to address lead. We also want to make sure that parents know that they are not alone.

As Candice shared, as Alicia shared, there are local resources and community partners who can help with testing, with education and housing support. So, asking questions and reaching out to any of us is an important first step. Dr. Mike, I would say that the bottom line is that lead education, it empowers parents, it protects children, and it helps build healthier communities. By working together on prevention, we’re not just improving health today, but we are protecting and ensuring the futures of our children.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. So, so very important. Our kids are our treasure and anything that we can do to help them to be healthy and to thrive is going to be such a very important work.

Well, this has been a great conversation. We are going to have lots of resources for folks in the show notes. So, if you head over to PediaCast.org, look for episode 616 and you’ll find a ton of stuff there for you, including links to, of course, the Junction Coalition and the Toledo Lead Resource Center and all the lead resources available through Nationwide Children’s Toledo. Also, Toledo Lead Safe, Toledo Lucas County Health Department. We have information about lead from the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Healthy Homes Network. Lead Free Ohio, more information on screening for lead poisoning.

The CDC Lead Free Communities Initiative. The National Tenants Bill of Rights is an important thing to know about. And so, lots of lots of great resources.

If you head over again to PediaCast.org and look for the show notes for Episode 616. So once again, Angela Mingo, Vice President of Development and Corporate Affairs at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Toledo. Alicia Smith, Executive Director of the Junction Coalition and Candace Buckley, Executive Director of the Toledo Lead Resource Center.

Thank you all so much for stopping by and chatting with us today.

[Angela Mingo]
Dr. Mike, thank you for having us and thank you for helping us share this important and critical health message.

[Alicia Smith]
Thank you, Dr. Mike, for having us. We greatly appreciate the support and this information getting out to our families to create a lead safe Toledo.

[Candace Buckley]
Thank you, Dr. Mike, for having us today. I hope all the listeners out there are feeling empowered by this conversation between our partnership and are looking to get their kids tested and get involved in their community in any way they can.

[MUSIC]

[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for taking time out of your day and making PediaCast a part of it. We really do appreciate your support. Also, thanks again to our guests this week.

Angela Mingo, Vice President of Development and Corporate Affairs at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Toledo. Alicia Smith, Executive Director of the Junction Coalition and Candice Buckley, Executive Director of the Toledo Lead Resource Center. Don’t forget, you can find us wherever podcasts are found.

We are in the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube and most other podcast apps for iOS and Android. Our landing site is PediaCast.org. You’ll find our entire archive of past programs there, along with show notes for each of the episodes, our terms of use agreement and the handy contact page.

If you would like to suggest a future topic for the program, reviews are helpful wherever you get your podcasts. We always appreciate when you share your thoughts about the show and we love connecting with you on social media. You will find us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, X and Blue Sky.

Simply search for PediaCast. We do have a sibling podcast called PediaCast CME. It is similar to this program. We turn the science up a couple of notches and offer free continuing medical education credit for those who listen.

That includes doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers and dentists. And it’s because Nationwide Children’s is jointly accredited by all of those professional organizations that we can offer the credits you need to fulfill your state’s continuing medical education requirements. Shows and details are available at the landing site for that program, PediaCastCME.org.

You can also listen wherever podcasts are found. Just search for PediaCast CME. We also have a faculty development podcast from the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring and Engagement at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

So, if you are a teacher in academic medicine or a faculty member in any of the health sciences at any institution across the country or around the world, then this is a podcast for you. And you can find FAMEcast at FameCast.org. Wherever podcasts are found, it’s also there.

Just search for FAMEcast. Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying stay safe, stay healthy and stay involved with your kids. So long, everybody.

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