I w % iSEZ j EPA Lead Program Grant Fact Sheet Outreach to Rural Latino Population Winston-Salem, North Carolina EPA has selected the Wake Forrest University School of Medicine (WFUSO) in Winston-Salem, NC for a Targeted Lead Grant. The University will use the grant money to develop a lay health advisor (LHA) program in three rural NC counties in which Latina mothers from local communities are trained to provide education and support related to lead poisoning prevention to their friends and neighbors. This project will fill a gap in North Carolina by addressing the non-literate Latino families who cannot read English or Spanish and are excluded from existing health care by ignorance and lack of documentation. NC has the second highest amount of Latino immigrants in the Southeast region and these immigrants have a 60% greater rate of elevated blood lead levels than other groups in NC. WFUSO has previously utilized contacts and partnered with entities embedded in these populations and expects to utilize them again to develop and utilize lay health advisors (LHA) for childhood lead poisoning outreach and education. The project will: • develop a LHA program focused on lead screening, • implement the LHA program, and • evaluate the program's effectiveness. The LHA program will train the health advisors about lead poisoning, provide a lesson plan that the LHAs can use to teach Latino parents, including a flip chart covering key messages, and will distribute brochures on lead poisoning with instructions on who to contact for screening and other help with elevated blood lead levels. 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. 2007 Targeted Lead Grant Program Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics www.epa.gov/lead ------- |