Despite the large number of Utah homes built before lead paint was banned in 1978, fewer than 3% of Utah children under the age of 5 were tested for lead in 2017. Approximately 58% of homes in Utah were built before lead paint's ban, putting potentially 157,000 children at risk of lead poisoning, Desert News reports.
“We need to make doctors do a better job of testing kids,” Fruin said. She said roughly 3% of Utah children under age 5 were tested for lead in 2017, and more than 2,000 in the Salt Lake Valley alone could have high enough levels of lead in their blood that it could cause lower IQ scores, attention deficit disorder and behavioral problems.
In recent years, the CDC decreased the acceptable range of blood lead levels to 5 micrograms per deciliter from 10, though “no safe blood lead level in children has been identified,” it states. The agency pushes prevention as its main public health strategy, as lead poisoning “is entirely preventable,” Brown said.
Removing or mitigating lead exposure in a home, Brown said, can impact multiple generations. Salt Lake County’s Lead Safe Housing program aims to help low- to moderate-income families decrease lead exposure in their homes. Homes built prior to 1940, Jepperson said, have at least a 90 percent chance of containing potentially harmful lead.
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