Health Justice Strategies to Eradicate Lead Poisoning: An Urgent Call to Action to Safeguard Future Generations

Emily A. Benfer, Emily Coffey, Allyson E. Gold, Mona Hanna-Attisha, Bruce Lanphear, Helen Y. Li, Ruth Ann Norton, David Rosner, Kate Walz

ABSTRACT. Despite over a century of evidence that lead is a neurotoxin that causes irreparable harm, today, lead continues to pervade children's environments and remains a constant threat to health and wellbeing. One in three homes across the United States housing children under the age of six has significant lead-based paint hazards that place occupants at risk of permanent neurological harm and lifelong poor health risks. Federal, state, and local governments must use a range of primary prevention strategies in order to fully eradicate the risks and protect children from lead poisoning. This Article provides a comprehensive examination of best practices for addressing lead poisoning and proposes urgent reform measures at the local and state levels. Successful interventions ultimately prioritize health justice strategies and rely on community ownership and cross-sector participation; dedicate significant resources and funding to completely eliminate lead in the environment; and prioritize primary prevention practices that identify lead-based paint hazards before children are exposed.

AUTHOR. Emily A. Benfer, JD, LLM, is a Visiting Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School where she founded and directs the Health Justice Advocacy Clinic, and the co-principal of Health Justice Innovations, LLC. Emily Coffey, JD, is a Housing Justice Staff Attorney at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. Allyson E. Gold, JD, is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction and Director of the Elder Law Clinic at the University of Alabama School of Law. Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP is the founder and Director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative. Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, is a Professor at Simon Fraser University. Helen Y. Li, JD, is a former Yale Public Interest Fellow at Connecticut Legal Services. Ruth Ann Norton is the President and CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. David Rosner, PhD, is the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a Professor of History at Columbia University. Kate Walz, JD, is the Vice President of Advocacy and Senior Director of Litigation at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. The authors wish to thank the Spring and Fall 2019 Health Justice Advocacy Clinic students for their exceptional research and advocacy under Professor Benfer's supervision. This article is dedicated to every child whose life was altered for the worse by exposure to lead hazards and to the promise of a lead-free future for all those who follow.

RECOMMENDED CITATION. Emily A. Benfer, Emily Coffey, Allyson E. Gold, Mona Hanna-Attisha, Bruce Lanphear, Helen Y. Li, Ruth Ann Norton, David Rosner & Kate Walz, Health Justice Strategies to Eradicate Lead Poisoning: An Urgent Call to Action to Safeguard Future Generations, 19 Yale J. Health Pol'y L. & Ethics (2020).