Lead-Safe Homes Website Project

In March 2002, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contracted with the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) to develop an interactive, web-based lead database that utilizes "real time" information and mapping capabilities. The project is initially being piloted in Baltimore, Boston and Chicago. NCHH has partnered with Abt Associates Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts to do the technical development of the database system and website. As part of HUD's strategy to eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010, this database system will serve as a national model and be available to other cities and states interested in using their local data in a similar way.

The overall project goals are to provide local, state and federal government officials, public and private organizations, health care providers and families with easy access to childhood lead poisoning prevention data and educational information, and to facilitate multi-disciplinary collaboration to further childhood lead poisoning prevention efforts. During the first six months of the project, NCHH and Abt Associates have been working with numerous stakeholders in each of the three cities to determine what data should be included in the database, how that data will be collected, cleaned and incorporated in the database system, how the data will be used to prevent childhood lead poisoning, and how it will be maintained over time. Stakeholders include local and state health and housing agencies, community groups and advocates, health care providers, non-profit housing organizations, and others.

Based on an assessment of stakeholder needs, the NCHH/Abt project team has identified six key features for the website:

  1. "real time" health and housing data
  2. one location for health and housing data
  3. housing data at the address level
  4. health data at a higher level of aggregation
  5. mapping capabilities
  6. links to other websites containing useful information

Comprehensive, "real time", address-specific data will distinguish this website from other sites and provide stakeholders with a critical prevention tool.  Address-level information will help shareholders to focus their efforts and target resources toward the areas of greatest need. 

More specifically, these features will enable the web-based database to assist:

  • city and neighborhood programs in targeting at-risk properties
  • city and neighborhood programs in targeting services and education as well as enforcement activities
  • community groups in targeting problem housing within their neighborhoods and more effectively advocating for resources based on specific data
  • individuals (e.g. renters, buyers) in identifying lead-safe housing
  • individuals (e.g. renters, buyers) in identifying at-risk housing
  • politicians in identifying whether their ward or district is at risk and is being adequately served
  • researchers in studying connections between housing and childhood lead poisoning

For the balance of the two-year life of the project, the NCHH/Abt team will complete the development and testing of the national and local components of the database system so that it will be fully operational by February 2004. In addition, the project team will explore whether the database system could be expanded to include data on residential environmental hazards, including allergens and pollutants associated with respiratory diseases such as asthma.

For more information:

Overall project: Pat McLaine

Baltimore:   Karen Dennis

Boston:  Peggy Hegarty-Steck:

Chicago: Shara Godiwalla:

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