December 12th, 2017
The Three Cities Lead Study investigated the effect if abatement of lead in soil upon blood lead levels in children living in Boston (EPA, 1993a; Weitzman et al., 1993;Aschengrau et al., 1994), Baltimore (EPA, 1993b) and Cincinnati (EPA, 1993c). This review focuses upon the Boston Study and, in particular, upon the EPA (1996) reanalysis of these data. In the Boston Study, 152 childrenn less than 4 years of age and with blood lead levels between 7 and 24 µg/dL were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. These groups received the following interventions during Phase I of the study: interior loose paint removal (Group B); interior loose paint removal and interior dust abatement (GroupA); interior loose paint removal, interior dust abatement, and soil abatement (Group S). During Phase II, th esoil of GroupsA and B was abated and about one-half of the properties in all three groups experienced interior paint deleading. Since there was no appropriate control group for the soil remediation performed during Phase II, and since during Phase I Groups B and S differed with respect to both soil and dust abatement, statistically valid conclusions regarding the effect of soil lead abatement must be based on comparisons between GroupsA and S during Phase I.