Detail

Residents as citizen scientists - deploying a field kit for lead in soils in rural Peru and urban New York

7. Juni 2017, 14:00 Uhr - 15:00 Uhr

Eawag Dübendorf

Referent: Franziska Landes (PhD student, Columbia University, USA) 
Ort: Forum Chriesbach, FC-C24
Sprache: Englisch

Abstract

Soil-borne sources of lead (Pb) exposure continue to have a profound negative impact on community health. Soil lead has been linked to child exposure, based largely on observed seasonality of resuspended soil-dust and child blood lead levels 1–6. Soil Pb concentrations can vary from neighborhood to home, highlighting the need for high-resolution sampling. Testing soils for Pb is the first crucial step in identifying and prioritizing areas for remediation and intervention.

The premise of our approach applied so far in New York and Peru is that public participation in sampling and testing could be particularly effective for protecting child health. Last year, caregivers in a few Peruvian mining towns participated in soil collection and analysis using a new field test kit for bio-accessible Pb. They discovered an area highly contaminated with Pb that had been overlooked by a prior gridded survey using a hand-held X-ray fluorescence analyzer8. In May 2017, New York City residents have been using an updated version of the kit, and preliminary results suggest private gardens rather than public spaces might be the principal source of child soil Pb exposure7.

These recent experiences indicate that, in addition to providing citizens with crucial data to make informed health decisions, public participation increases the density of sampling, especially in private locations, and may better represent public health exposure. In the future, variations of these approaches could be adapted to engage residents to assess and address their community's environmental health around the world.