Hennepin County, MN

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced dramatic changes to the Hennepin County Housing and Economic Development’s (HCHED) community outreach for lead exposure education. In-person events were cancelled and if the event returned, it was often scaled back. A new approach was needed for community outreach.

To continue to raise awareness among families with children younger than 6 years of age at risk of lead exposure and connect them to resources, HCHED increased social media outreach. HCHED hired a community relations consultant to run a social media campaign launched to coincide with National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week in October 2021. The consultant took HCHED’s existing photos, video, and scripts for social media posts and created two short videos. The short videos were used on Facebook and as bumper ads on YouTube. The videos were aimed at parents of young children, populations who do not speak English, landlords, and those living in the areas with highest risk for lead exposure based on the prevalence of higher childhood blood lead levels and older housing. The campaign ran from late October through early December 2021.

The campaign reached over 41,000 people in top priority zip codes through YouTube bumper ads. The Facebook videos drove visits to Hennepin County’s website where families learned more about lead exposure. Families could also sign up for resources, including HCHED’s U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)–funded lead-based paint hazard control grant. HEHED ran more ads in geographies at higher risk of lead exposure, which increased the chances that the population of focus would remember and act on the content.

The number of families connected to resources through Hennepin County’s website during the campaign increased by 41% in 2021 compared with the same period a year prior, and by 23% compared with the previous quarter when HCHED ran a smaller social media campaign.

In the suburban portion of Hennepin County, outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, families of children with elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) of 5–14.9 μg/dL received follow up from a public health nurse. However, full home lead inspections were generally completed only on homes of children with a BLL, confirmed by a venous blood sample, of 15 μg/dL or greater. When sources of lead exposure are not identified and eliminated or reduced after a high blood lead level is detected, a child’s BLL and associated health conditions may further increase.

Hennepin County Department of Community Works (HCCW) partnered with the Hennepin County Public Health Department. Through this partnership, the two agencies strengthened coordination to increase affected families’ access to testing home items or sources of lead exposure and improve identification, data collection, and awareness of non-paint lead sources in the community. HCCW-trained risk assessors worked with public health nurses and existing laboratory and x‐ray fluorescence (XRF) equipment contracts to offer testing methods. These included identifying items that may be sources of lead exposure in the home, screening the items with on-site XRF, and sending item samples that are found to contain lead for final confirmatory lab testing. As pinpointing lead exposure sources can be more difficult at lower BLLs, the ability to screen homes of children with BLLs closer to 5 μg/dL was especially beneficial.

This intervention resulted in eight home inspections. In each home, sources of possible lead exposure were identified or ruled out. For one South Asian family whose child had a high blood lead level, gripe water and a powder were found to be the likely sources of lead exposure. For an African immigrant family whose U.S.-born child’s elevated BLL dropped after moving to Hennepin County but then slightly increased, spices and powders in the home were ruled out as sources. These results, along with subsequent BLL tests showing a steady decline in BLL, helped determine that exposure likely occurred before living in their current residence. For a family living in a 1970 apartment complex, lead-based paint, toys, utensils, powders, spices, and keys were screened. Only the keys were found to contain lead, and the parents recalled their child had chewed on the keys. Additionally, for a family living in an old farmhouse who did not qualify for a lead-based paint grant or other housing repair resources, risk assessors used XRF screening to guide the family on making the property lead-safe.