Published by northjersey.com here with quotes from Lead-Free NJ Housing Committee policy advisor, Ben Haygood: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2024/04/26/child-lead-poisoning-has-declined-in-nj-but-persists/73437813007/

Children in these NJ towns are most at risk for lead poisoning

The rate of lead poisoning among New Jersey’s children has dropped in recent years, but the problem remains rooted in lower-income communities that have a high percentage of renters and an older housing stock with deteriorating lead paint — the biggest source of elevated levels, a new report shows.

The percentage of children younger than 6 with elevated levels of lead in their blood dropped from 2.5% to 1.9% over five years from July 2017 through June 2022, according to the state Department of Health’s annual report on childhood exposure to lead, released Monday.

“We see some progress being made but screening kids has always been a canary-in-the-coal-mine way of measuring the problem,” said Ben Haygood, policy director for Isles Inc., a Trenton-based nonprofit that works to make homes safe from lead. “It really should be secondary to going in and testing homes.”

Children are flagged if they have 5 or more micrograms of lead per deciliters in their blood, but public health officials say there is no safe level of lead since it can cause irreversible brain damage at a critical time in a child’s development.

The number of children with elevated lead levels is expected to increase starting next year because New Jersey has lowered the testing threshold to 3.5 micrograms to adhere to recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.