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BACKGROUND: This study is a cost-benefit analysis that quantifies the social and economic benefits to household lead paint hazard control compared with the investments needed to minimize exposure to these hazards.
OBJECTIVES: This research updates estimates of elevated blood lead levels among a cohort of children ≤ 6 years of age and compiles recent research to determine a range of the costs of lead paint hazard control ($1-$11 billion) and the benefits of reduction attributed to each cohort for health care ($11-$53 billion), lifetime earnings ($l65-$233 billion), tax revenue ($25-$35 billion), special education ($30-$l46 million), attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder ($267 million), and the direct costs of crime ($1.7 billion).
RESULTS: Each dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17-$221 or a net savings of $181-269 billion.
CONCLUSIONS: There are substantial returns to investing in lead hazard control, particularly targeted at early intervention in communities most likely at risk. Given the high societal costs of inaction, lead hazard control appears to be well worth the price.
KEY WORDS: cost-benefit, economics, housing, lead poisoning. Environ Health Perspect 117:1162-1167 (2009). doi:10.1289/ehp.0800408 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 31 March 2009]
Lead poisoning is a serious hazard for children and causes significant biological and neurologic damage linked to cognitive and behavioral impairment (Bellinger 2008a, 2008b). The level of lead exposure has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years because the lead content has been reduced in gasoline, household paint, food canning, industrial emissions, water lead, and other sources, and because public health and housing initiatives have targeted the problem. According to the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), a population survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the geometric mean for blood lead levels (BLLs) for children 1-5 years of age fell from 14.9 µg/dL in 1976 to 1.7 µg/dL in 2006 (CDC 2007b). The number of children 1-5 years of age with BLLs at least 10 µg/ dL has fallen from an estimated 13.5 million to 174,000 over the same period (NHANES 2003-2006). Although the 1- to 5-year age grouping is useful for comparison over time, I focus on a cohort of children _ 6 years of age in which there are an estimated 194,000 children with BLLs at...