Exposure to lead in the environment can harm anyone’s health. However, it is especially harmful to children under age six, because their bodies are still growing. The Missouri Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program provides data on lead levels in adults and children in Missouri.
What is Lead Poisoning?
Lead poisoning happens when an adult or child swallows or breathes in lead. Lead is especially harmful to children. Even at low levels, lead can affect a child's growth, behavior, and development, including their ability to pay attention, learn, and achieve in school. There is no safe level of lead, and lead poisoning can have many health effects. Health effects can be long lasting.
The most common way children are exposed to lead is from lead paint (and lead dust) in homes built before 1980. Lead paint was used the most in homes built before 1950. Children can also be exposed to lead in soil from old paint wearing away, and from pipes with lead in them in older homes. In some areas in Missouri, children live near old lead mines, which can also be a source of exposure. Leftover mining waste has moved off mining sites and has been used as fill in yards, driveways, and playgrounds where children play.
Monitoring blood lead levels allows parents, healthcare providers, public health officials, and communities to take action to reduce lead exposures. To learn more about childhood lead poisoning prevention, visit Missouri’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.
To learn more about adult lead poisoning, visit Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance.
Blood Lead Data
The Missouri EPHT Program provides data on blood lead testing in Missouri. You can search the data by test year or by the year a child was born (birth cohort), as well as by age, sex, race, ethnicity and test outcome.
Search this query to find:
Annual number of blood lead tests
Annual number of blood lead elevations
Annual percent of population tested
Annual percent of tested population with elevated blood lead
Number of children born in the same year and tested for lead
Number of children born in the same year with elevated blood lead
Percent of children born in the same year with elevated blood lead
Other Data Sources
Other data sources share additional data related to blood lead poisoning, like age of housing data.
Lead Exposure Risk Tool
Missouri EPHT’s Lead Exposure Risk Tool provides information on childhood lead exposure risks in counties and zip codes. Risks are higher in areas with low testing rates, high levels of lead in children's or adults' blood, many older homes built before 1980, and closeness to old lead mines.
Using the Data
Blood lead data can help you:
- See if some communities or populations are at higher risk of blood lead poisoning
- See if blood lead poisoning is going up or down over time
- Direct testing efforts or resources for reducing risk
- Find and fix sources of lead exposure
- See progress towards lowering blood lead levels
Additional Resources
- CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking – Childhood Lead Poisoning
- CDC - Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention
Contact Information
Environmental Public Health Tracking Program
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0570Telephone: 573-751-6102 or
(toll-free) 866-628-9891
Fax: 573-526-6946
Email: EPHTN@health.mo.gov