Better Off

March 7, 2019: Many U.S. schools aren't testing drinking water for lead

03.07.2019 - By Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthPlay

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The traditional public health mantra is that there is no safe level of lead for kids. But a new report from the Harvard Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity finds that many kids in the U.S. could be exposed to lead through the water they drink at school.

The team from the Harvard Prevention Research Center analyzed data from 24 states that have lead testing programs in schools, plus Washington, D.C. Only 12 of the states had useable results. Among those, 12% of all water samples tested had higher-than-recommended lead levels, and 44% of schools tested had one or more samples with higher-than-recommended levels. In this week’s episode we’re talking about the report and its findings with Angie Cradock, who is the deputy director of the Prevention Research Center.

Full Transcript: https://hsph.me/lead-pod

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