Allegheny County (Pa.). Health Dept.

The Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Health Department Lead Survey spans the years 1971 to 1975. It represents an early stage in the ongoing nationwide effort to improve children's well being by eradicating unhealthful amounts of lead in their surroundings and bodies. Although it later became part of the national blood lead survey, Allegheny County's Lead Survey began as a pilot study of a local blighted neighborhood. Tests of the neighborhoods' children showed that they had lower levels of lead exposure than their peers in other cities. Health Department officials sought to determine if the relatively low incidence of lead poisoning occurred because health care providers were not looking for it or because the Allegheny County children's lives were somehow different from those of their counterparts in other cities. As explained in the Allegheny County Health Department's March 1, 1972 Lead Poisoning Control Program book (pages 3-4), "These questions concern us, and provide the basis for our interest in establishment of a lead poisoning control project in Allegheny County..." to gain answers and "provide ...effective lead poisoning detection." The Allegheny County Lead Survey project was performed under the leadership of Dr. Albert H. Brunwasser, with Drs. Penn Lupovic, Roger Juselius, and Richard Moriarty, assisted by Robert Kambic, Janet Bonk, nurses, laboratory personnel, and teams of paraprofessional workers who were recruited from local communities and trained in survey methods. The Health Department continued to assess and document lead levels in children's blood and in their homes through 1975, when funding was discontinued. Although the Braddock, Hill District, Homestead, Homewood-Brushton, North Braddock, North Side-Manchester, Rankin, Turtle Creek Valley, and Wilkinsburg neighborhoods were surveyed, some areas of the County had not been studied at the program's conclusion, and the reason for the lower-than-expected blood lead levels does not appear to have been found.