Every year the promise of thousands of young children in Pennsylvania is diminished due to lead paint poisoning. PA is an old state with 70% of houses built more than 40 years ago, so our windows and walls and railings and baseboards were coated with lead-based paint, and when it chips and flakes and dusts, it can irreversibly injure our children.
Pennsylvania children are poisoned at a rate 2.3 times higher than children poisoned in Flint, Michigan at the peak of the city’s crisis. Approximately 8,000 PA children are poisoned every year, yet these are only the children we know about as only 20% of children are tested.
The majority of the children who are harmed in PA are white. Children of color are disproportionately impacted, however, because they are more likely to live in older properties with deteriorated lead-based paint. Black children are harmed four times more and Hispanic children twice more than white children.
Children First is a founding member of the Lead-Free Promise Project, a statewide coalition of more than 60 groups that are fighting to end the scourge of lead-paint poisoning through public awareness campaigns and government programs that help residents get lead hazards out of their homes.
Click here to visit the Lead-Free Promise Project and join our powerful movement to keep children safe from lead poisoning.