IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0234995.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The intersectional effect of poverty, home ownership, and racial/ethnic composition on mean childhood blood lead levels in Milwaukee County neighborhoods

Author

Listed:
  • Emily E Lynch
  • Helen C S Meier

Abstract

Environmental conditions that contribute to childhood lead exposure are spatially patterned. Socioeconomic and racial inequities in childhood lead exposure have been well documented, however childhood lead exposure in Milwaukee is understudied. As a segregated rustbelt metropolitan area with childhood lead exposure concerns, Milwaukee is uniquely positioned to evaluate the synergistic effects of racial and economic drivers of childhood lead exposure. Using surveillance data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health and the US Census Bureau, this cross-sectional study determined the intersectional effect of poverty, home ownership, and racial/ethnic composition on childhood lead exposure in Milwaukee County neighborhoods using linear regression adjusting for average census tract housing age and number of children. The final analytical sample consisted of 48,393 individual childhood blood lead levels aggregated to 215 Milwaukee County census tracts. Census tracts with mean childhood blood lead levels greater than or equal to 5 μg/dL were predominantly low home ownership, high poverty, and majority non-White census tracts. The effects of low home ownership, high poverty, and majority non-White census tracts were synergistic, producing 1.78 (95% CI: 1.44, 2.11) μg/dL higher mean childhood blood lead level than high home ownership, low poverty, and majority White census tracts (referent). This research reveals that social determinants at the neighborhood level co-occur and interact to produce inequities in childhood lead exposure. Lead prevention efforts should align with equity-focused housing and economic policies that target primary prevention in neighborhoods disproportionately burdened by childhood lead exposure.

Suggested Citation

  • Emily E Lynch & Helen C S Meier, 2020. "The intersectional effect of poverty, home ownership, and racial/ethnic composition on mean childhood blood lead levels in Milwaukee County neighborhoods," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0234995
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234995
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234995&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0234995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greene, S.K. & Levin-Rector, A. & Hadler, J.L. & Fine, A.D., 2015. "Disparities in reportable communicable disease incidence by census tract-level poverty, New York City, 2006-2013," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105(9), pages 27-34.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael J. O’Shea & Jonas Toupal & Hasibe Caballero-Gómez & Thomas P. McKeon & Marilyn V. Howarth & Richard Pepino & Reto Gieré, 2021. "Lead Pollution, Demographics, and Environmental Health Risks: The Case of Philadelphia, USA," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-22, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ja-Young Han & Jae-Hee Kwon & Sun-Hwa Kim & Heeyoung Lee, 2023. "Hepatitis Risk in Diabetes Compared to Non-Diabetes and Relevant Factors: A Cross-Sectional Study with National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2013–2018," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-12, March.
    2. Suparna Das & Jenevieve Opoku & Adam Allston & Michael Kharfen, 2018. "Detecting spatial clusters of HIV and hepatitis coinfections," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-13, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0234995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.