More than two-thirds of children under the age of 6 in Chicago may be exposed to lead-contaminated water, a new study finds.The study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics analyzed lead exposure based on 38,385 household lead tests collected by the Chicago Department of Water Management between January 2016 and September 2023. The researchers used machine learning, an artificial intelligence technique using algorithms, to estimate lead levels in tap water across Chicago based on this existing data.They found that about 75% of residential city blocks in Chicago had lead-contaminated water. And more than two-thirds – approximately 129,000 – children under the age of 6 in Chicago live on these blocks and may be exposed to lead-contaminated water.“The extent of lead contamination of tap water in Chicago is disheartening—it’s not something we should be seeing in 2024,” Dr. Benjamin Huynh, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a news release.City blocks with predominantly Black or Hispanic populations were less likely to be tested for lead and more likely to have lead-contaminated drinking water, the study found.“For over 30 years, lead has been the emblematic example of environmental racism. It continues to be children of color or poor children who are disproportionately impacted,” said Dr. Monna Hanna-Attisha, pediatrician and professor at Michigan State University who helped expose the Flint water crisis and who was not involved with this study.The cutoff that researchers used to determine whether a residential block had lead-contaminated drinking water was if the majority of tests withi …
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnMore than two-thirds of children under the age of 6 in Chicago may be exposed to lead-contaminated water, a new study finds.The study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics analyzed lead exposure based on 38,385 household lead tests collected by the Chicago Department of Water Management between January 2016 and September 2023. The researchers used machine learning, an artificial intelligence technique using algorithms, to estimate lead levels in tap water across Chicago based on this existing data.They found that about 75% of residential city blocks in Chicago had lead-contaminated water. And more than two-thirds – approximately 129,000 – children under the age of 6 in Chicago live on these blocks and may be exposed to lead-contaminated water.“The extent of lead contamination of tap water in Chicago is disheartening—it’s not something we should be seeing in 2024,” Dr. Benjamin Huynh, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a news release.City blocks with predominantly Black or Hispanic populations were less likely to be tested for lead and more likely to have lead-contaminated drinking water, the study found.“For over 30 years, lead has been the emblematic example of environmental racism. It continues to be children of color or poor children who are disproportionately impacted,” said Dr. Monna Hanna-Attisha, pediatrician and professor at Michigan State University who helped expose the Flint water crisis and who was not involved with this study.The cutoff that researchers used to determine whether a residential block had lead-contaminated drinking water was if the majority of tests withi …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
