P A \ lag i EPA Lead Program Grant Fact Sheet Physician's Protocol to Identify Lead Poisoned Children/Father Flanagan's Boys' Home Omaha, Nebraska EPA has selected Father Flanagan's Boys' Home in Omaha, Nebraska for a Targeted Lead Grant. The $99,244 grant project is to design, pilot, and disseminate a "physician's lead screening protocol" within Boys Town Pediatrics in Omaha to improve testing rates and identification of cases of childhood lead poisoning. If successful, the protocol would be disseminated to all nine Boys Town clinics and later to pediatricians across the country. Boys Town Pediatrics provides primary care services to children through clinics in Douglas County, NE, which has one of the highest rates of childhood lead poisoning in the state. The clinics' service area includes the EPA Omaha Superfund lead site. EPA's Targeted Lead Grants EPA's Targeted Lead Grant Program funds projects in areas with high incidences of children with elevated blood-lead levels in vulnerable populations. In 2007 the Agency awarded more than $5.2 Million in grants under this ambitious program. These targeted grants are intended to address immediate needs of the communities in which they are awarded, and will also highlight lead poison prevention strategies that can be used in similar communities across the country. EPA's lead program is playing a major role in meeting the federal goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning as a major public health concern by 2010, and the projects supported by these grant funds are an important part of this ongoing effort. According to the Centers for Disease Control in 1978 there were 13.5 million children in the US with elevated blood lead levels. By 2002, that number had dropped to 310,000. For more information about EPA's Lead Program, visit www.epa.gov/lead or call the National Lead Information Center at 1-800-424-LEAD. Many Douglas County children under 6 years of age are not being tested for lead in accordance with County recommendations and Medicaid requirements. The overall goal is to screen 95 percent of the children seen in Boys Town Pediatric Clinics for the presence of lead. 2007 Targeted Lead Grant Program Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics www.epa.gov/lead ------- |