BALTIMORE — A proactive approach to prevent lead poisoning.
The Baltimore City Health Department announced a new campaign to encourage more people to get their children tested. The effort involves an MTA ad campaign rolling out in October aimed at neighborhoods where lead poisoning is more common.
Baltimore Health Care providers will receive more assistance from the city as well as toolkit with materials to educate on the dangers of lead poisoning and the importance of testing children early.
"This is a reinvigoration of a lot of the work that we're doing but definitely the focus on testing itself is new," said Greg Sileo, Assistant Commissioner, Chronic Disease Prevention. "In the past it's been about our home visiting programs where we go in and offer services to help identify the source of the lead and provide ongoing services but being on the front end to figure out which kids have been effected and really doing a push to get more kids and get testing numbers up is something the city hasn't really focused on in the past."
The campaign also involves working with child care providers and residents to encourage children to be tested.
