We are collaborating with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to create the Lead-Free Communities Initiative, which has released new resources to support community action.
Because exposure to any amount of lead is unsafe, RESOLVE has long been committed to helping communities eliminate or reduce lead exposure hazards.
Since 2020, we have been partnering with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to design and build the Lead-Free Communities (LFC) Initiative, a national initiative to eliminate lead exposure and its associated negative health effects in communities across the U.S. The LFC Initiative offers a unique, comprehensive, multi-sector approach for encouraging and supporting communities to collaboratively develop and implement customized plans to eliminate exposures to lead hazards, with a strong focus on health equity and environmental justice.
While it is important to note that lead is a widespread, naturally occurring element that cannot be completely eliminated, communities can eliminate or reduce specific exposure hazards. The LFC Initiative promotes a comprehensive approach since addressing lead hazards from many sources within a community can have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of the people who live, work, play, and learn in that community.
Through the LFC Initiative, we have worked closely with CDC to create the Lead-Free Communities Toolkit, a resource to help communities of all sizes and varieties develop collaborative plans to systematically identify and eliminate lead exposure hazards. It offers a customizable roadmap for community mobilization and includes concrete steps and interventions communities can take to eliminate exposure hazards, as well as tips for establishing a local network of partners to collaborate on lead hazard elimination, steps for developing and implementing a local action plan, and tools to engage the broader community in planning and implementation. We launched the Toolkit this week and will be updating it periodically to include additional information and more tips and strategies from communities making progress in eliminating local lead hazards.
To complement the Toolkit, we are also developing a series of community stories to highlight real world examples of some of the strategies, tools, and resources referenced in the Toolkit and to showcase unique approaches some communities have taken to address local lead exposure hazards. The first six stories in this series are now available online.
With CDC we have also launched the LFC Network, a national learning and support network of communities working on lead elimination. The Network brings together and encourages collaboration among communities, organizations, agencies, technical experts, and others throughout the U.S. to support local capacity building through information sharing, technical assistance, and peer mentoring. Over the summer, teams from communities across the country joined us in Louisville, Kentucky for the Network’s inspiring inaugural summit.
Our work on the LFC Initiative builds on our long history of work on lead hazards, including the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, which we created in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, Children’s Environmental Health Network, the American Water Works Association, Clean Water Action, and others. We launched the Collaborative in 2016, following the lead poisoning disaster in Flint, Michigan, as a forum for accelerating full removal of the lead pipes providing drinking water to millions of American homes. The Collaborative continues to be a resource for communities as drinking water systems across the country face new requirements from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify and replace lead service lines within the next 10 years.
As we celebrate National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week this week, we are encouraged by the progress communities across the country have made to address lead exposure hazards. But we know there is so much more work to be done. We remain committed to looking for new ways to support communities in addressing lead exposure hazards.
Beth Weaver, Director of Healthy Communities
At RESOLVE, we’re here to tackle the toughest global challenges. The ones nobody else wants to touch. Where people are in conflict and planet problems are stuck. We’re here to unstick them. It’s not easy. It takes grit and ingenuity. And finding and working with the right partners. But we’re not called RESOLVE for nothing.
