LEAD POISONING MAPS
NYPIRG 's End Childhood Lead Poisoning Campaign has prepared a map of New
York City showing the geographic distribution of the 1,049 new cases of
childhood lead poisoning reported to the NYC Health Department in 1997,
portrayed by local health districts. City Council district boundaries are
also shown on the map.
Each health district on the map is shaded based on the rate of new cases for
that district (i.e., the number of new cases per 1,000 children between 6
months and 6 years of age). The levels of shading were determined using the
quantile classification method, which is designed to assign approximately
the same number of districts to each data range. The map also includes a
table with the actual number and rate of new cases for each district.
Although the city's Health Code since 1992 has defined lead poisoning to
include all children with blood lead levels of 10 ug/dL or higher, the
Health Department tends to release data concerning new cases of childhood
lead poisoning when blood lead levels are >= 20 ug/dL -- the level at which
the Health Department must inspect a child's home and order leaded paint
abatement. We were limited to showing this lead poisoning data as provided
by the Health Department, rather than more comprehensive statistics that
include all cases of lead poisoning reported in New York City.
The map was created by NYPIRG's Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP),
using ArcView 3.1 provided by the Conservation Technology Support Program.
www.nypirg.org | www.straphangers.org | www.cmap.nypirg.org
