SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
The SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast is a fun, entertaining, and enlightening look at health and wellness. It breaks down complex health topics and interviews experts in the wellness field to help participants live healthier lives.
SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
Get Lead-ucated!
Uncover the hidden dangers of lead poisoning and discover practical steps to safeguard your family in our latest thought-provoking episode of the Employee Wellness Wellcast. We sit down with Candice Breeze and Brittany Bucko from the Salt Lake County Health Department to unravel the complexities of lead exposure, highlighting the alarming vulnerability of children under six. From peeling paint in older homes to contaminated soil and imported goods, lead lurks in unexpected places. Candice and Brittany share their personal journeys into lead education, underscoring the critical need for awareness. Their eye-opening insights reveal how even the smallest amounts of lead can have profound neurotoxic effects, stressing the urgency of testing and early intervention.
This episode calls for community engagement and offers listeners actionable ways to contribute, from organizing informational sessions at local libraries to supporting senior centers. Join us on this crucial journey to prevent lead poisoning and build healthier, safer communities for everyone.
Hi listeners, this is Jacqueline Miller and Megan Mattson from Salt Lake County Employee Wellness and you're listening to the Employee Wellness Wellcast. This podcast breaks down complex health topics and interviews experts in the wellness field to help participants live healthier lives.
Speaker 2:Today we're talking about lead poisoning and prevention with Candice Breeze and Brittany Bucko, experts in lead poisoning prevention and health educators at the Salt Lake County Health Department. Candice was born and raised in Salt Lake City, where her love for exploring the environment began as a child, playing in the dirt and discovering the world around her. Her journey into lead education started as she joined the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. It opened her eyes to the profound impact of lead poisoning. Now she's passionate about reducing and preventing exposure to this neurotoxin and feels privileged to contribute to creating healthier communities. And feels privileged to contribute to creating healthier communities.
Speaker 1:And Brittany. After being a stay-at-home mom for 25 years, brittany discovered public health and finished her bachelor's in health education and promotion three years ago. After working with the asthma home visit program, she began working in the lead poisoning prevention program. Her passion has spread to her entire family, who often find articles on products with lead. They also share their knowledge with teachers and friends who wonder why they know so much about lead and lead poisoning.
Speaker 2:I love that. We'll discuss everything there is to know about lead educated, or about getting lead educated, including what lead is, how to reduce lead exposure and the testing and treatment options available. So, Brittany and Candice, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us. Let's dive in by talking about the Salt Lake County Health Department's LED program. Candice, can you share about the program and what you do on the team? Yeah, so.
Speaker 4:I work with clinics, primarily setting up CQIs, so this just means I'm trying to get policy in place to ensure that they're testing these kids as they're coming in and you know Medicaid requires it at 12 and 24 months. So just trying to make sure that the testing's happening, but then also that it's being reported to the state, because that's how we receive the info is when it gets reported to the state. And then I help with outreach and I love to sit in on home visits with Brittany and McKinley because it's I learned something. I learned something every week. This week it was looking at pets and potential lead poisoning and found out that, you know, golf balls, especially older golf balls, can have lead. And so that was, yeah, it was down the rabbit hole. I'm still learning, yeah that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Brittany, can you add on to what Candice shared about the program and what you do on the team?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so mostly I do the home visits. So if a little kiddo has an elevated blood-blood level, I'll be in charge of the families. We go to their home, we do an education with them to talk about what exactly blood is, where it comes from and how we can get it out of their bodies. And we now have something called an XRF lead analyzer that we can test different products in their home so that we know exactly where the lead is coming from. And then I also go to outreach events and whatever else needs to get done to protect these kiddos.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So can you tell us what is lead and why it's harmful for our bodies?
Speaker 3:So lead is a metal like gold or silver, but if you were to ingest a little bit of those, nothing bad is going to happen. But with lead, if you ingest even a small amount as a grain of salt, it's enough to poison a kid. So we want to make sure that these kids aren't exposed to any of this lead at all. And lead, it's a great metal. It's stable, it's easy to work with, it does some great things, and so people have been using it for thousands of years. But now we know that lead is a neurotoxin, so we want to keep it out of kids' environment and keep it out of their body. It gets into their bodies by ingesting something with lead or breathing it in, and then it gets into their blood, it travels into their brain, to their soft tissues, their bones, and from there it can cause all kinds of nasty problems.
Speaker 2:So can you elaborate on some of the common sources of lead poisoning that we should be aware?
Speaker 4:of. So a few off the top of my head is the biggest one. The biggest culprit is going to be paint in homes older than 1978. And even if they've been painted over and encapsulated, you have to be mindful of any dings, scratches, wear and tear on that, because that's going to cause the release of dust which is going to result in lead poisoning. But then we are also seeing it in soil, in certain areas more than others. We have zip codes on the Utah Lead Coalition site that list out the high risk zip codes for the county. And then we have things that we're finding actually interesting. Enough is I have yet to test a key, not a fob, but a key that doesn't have lead all of them and not a good level. They're all high. And then stained glass. Brittany tested old ornaments. What would have you?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I know that. A lot of those beautiful plates and all of the beautiful dishware that you find with all the pretty paints, all have lead in them yeah, I was shocked by the keys too.
Speaker 3:That was surprising to me yeah, antique furniture, antique toys, parents, jewelry it's not a product meant for kids. Therefore it can have lead in it. Um, spices, especially turmeric from the middle east, chilies from from South America, can also have a lot of lead in them. Pottery and dishes from outside of the United States it's not regulated like it is here, so if someone's gone on vacation and brings back pretty plates or interesting pots and pans, those could also be a source of lead.
Speaker 2:Are there certain populations I'm guessing it's maybe children and aging populations but are there certain populations more vulnerable than others to lead?
Speaker 4:So kids under six, because of their faster brain rate, faster metabolism, and then just also that they have so much development happening in their brain at that point, and lead is a neurotoxin and so it will disrupt that development and damage. And so you know, we have a dietary approach and then we also have reading, which is going to help bridge new connections in those neural pathways, to compensate, hopefully, for what has been lost.
Speaker 1:Is lead exposure preventable.
Speaker 3:If you do not expose a child to lead, they will not be poisoned. So it's knowing where lead is, where it could potentially be found, and then not letting your child be exposed to it. So if you have a home older than 1978, you're going to want to wet clean. You're going to want to make sure you're not dry sanding anywhere in your house, being mindful of your kids eating the soil. If you have antique furniture, don't let your kids chew on it. Don't let your kids chew on your jewelry. Don't let them touch stained glass. If you have a parent whose job involves lead whether that's doing demolition, mining, construction, any of those things that could potentially have it when they come home, change their clothes, take a shower before you let your kids how you send that breathing that dust in. When they come home, change their clothes, take a shower before you let your kids have use of that breathing that dust in. So, basically, don't let your kid get exposed to lead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just continuing to talk about testing. What symptoms should we be looking out for that might indicate a lead exposure that we need to get tested for?
Speaker 4:So that's a hard thing with lead is? It's similar? I mean, I compare it to oh I was actually talking to a coworker today smoking. You may not see the repercussions of this for years. You may, you may not, right? It's just like these exposures to things vary person by person, based on their environment, their dietary intake, their age, all of those things, and so the symptoms would be hard.
Speaker 4:What typically prompts doctors to test is going to be things like anemia, since when lead gets into the bloodstream it's taking the spot of iron, which results in anemia.
Speaker 4:We're going to see it tested when they have pica, because if they're eating soil or non-food objects there's a greater risk for them to be exposed to lead.
Speaker 4:We do like to encourage pregnant women to get tested, just because the problem is the half-life in blood and soft tissue is 30 days. So if you were exposed in June and that was a one-time thing, but it was a high amount then in September you could test really low or not at all for having any in your body. But it doesn't mean you didn't have that exposure, because it also mimics calcium. Its half-life in bones is 10 to 20 years, which means that as you grow up and you get pregnant and your body starts to, you know, break down that calcium to retrieve it for the growing baby, then you're going to see that restructuring resulting in potential resurgence of lead that was stored in the bone from when they were exposed as a child, right? So there's not always going to be symptoms, but we do look at more. I think it's more relevant to look at the story of their environment and what their hobbies are than it is to look for symptoms.
Speaker 3:To be honest, Initially there might be symptoms like digestive issues, joint trouble, eating things like that, which is tricky because sometimes just normal toddler preschool behavior kind of mimics. That what we get concerned about is long term exposure with these kids throughout their childhood, about the time they start school at five or six. Now the symptoms look like ADHD, behavior problems, aggression, learning disabilities, and now these aren't reversible. Now we're just having to deal with the consequences of those. So special education, behavior management, things like that.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really fascinating to look at the environment before looking into the actual exposures. How would a typical lead test be performed? What's the procedure with that?
Speaker 4:For testing on a human. It would be capillary. So they can do a finger prick, they'll do a little bit of blood draw and they can test it on a lead care 2 machine from there, depending on that level, because there can be a two point variance, depending on what they see. If it's 3.5 or higher they're going to order a venous and that's our confirmation test. That's the one we go off of. There's not as much room for error. You know, if the finger's not clean properly, you can see a spike on a capillary from something like that just as an example. So we look to the venous for our confirmation level. So once somebody's had the, if they have lead poisoning, it's better at that point to just do venous going forward, like there's no real need to continue to just do the finger prick and then also the venous, since that's what we're going to want to watch anyways. However, it is good for an initial confirmatory just to get an idea of if it's a risk. I mean that's yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if somebody tests positive on what treatments would they receive? What treatments are available to them?
Speaker 3:um, if it's a low level, say below 40, which is not a low level the treatment is basically stopping exposed to lead. Make sure that you're washing your kids' hands, their toys, their binkies, anything that's going to hit the floor, so they don't have that continued exposure. And then we're going to want to make sure that they have a good diet. Nutrition is going to be key for these kids. If somebody has lead poisoning, we want to make sure that their little tummy stays full all the time. This way, as their body is naturally releasing the lead, it can then absorb the iron and the calcium that has been displaced by the lead and use that.
Speaker 4:They have chelation, but that is for really high levels and it's there's some really hard side effects that come with it. So it is kind of a last. It is a last resort in terms of approach, but there's not any. I am not aware of any any special herbal, anything that can detox this, to be clear, cause I know that I've seen it online and I'm aware of anything like that that can detox it.
Speaker 1:It's it online and I see all the stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anything like that that can detox it, it's just time and giving the body the nutrients to swap out the lead with yeah, your body will naturally release that lead and, as it does, you want to make sure that it has the nutrition it needs to kind of reset what it was supposed to be doing so, as far as the resources at Salt Lake County, what kind of things does the lead prevention program offer to help with lead prevention, exposure to lead, testing, everything?
Speaker 4:So we have. We go to events and you know we're always happy to have somebody reach out if they wanted something tested, that will set up an appointment, if they can't make it to an outreach event, to test it for them so that we can get it out of their environment, if it is quickly. We have the home visiting program, which is crucial to these kids that are testing positive so we can find it in their environment. There's let's Save Housing and then Brittany. When Brittany and McKinley go into the home visits they also bring books for each kid in the family and they have those conversations with the family about what other resources they may need, because we do work a lot with refugees. It's a required test when they come into the States, so it's pretty unavoidable for them for us to capture it Right. It is kind of just having that conversation with them and then seeing what they need. Their social determinants of health Do they need, you know?
Speaker 4:more food to be able to meet these nutrient requirements. And what are they cooking with? Which is how we found that? You know a lot of Middle Eastern families have pressure cookers that we're seeing that are spiking these kids' levels.
Speaker 2:So lots of different resources and that's awesome that you're in there already with the refugee community, because you're immediately getting in there and helping them. Because my next question even if somebody had the home testing, if they were interested in getting that, how would they contact you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they can call us. We have a Google number set up for phone calls and text messages so they can have that conversation with us and, when they need to, we can go out there and test their items. Or, if it's just a little bit, they could bring it here to the South Hollywood office and we could test it for them, or they could come to one of the outreach events Awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, this is such good information. Right when I experienced the lead testing in October, I was like I want to do a WellCast with the lead prevention program because it's so important, and so I really appreciate you, bothice and Brittany, for coming and joining us today on the Wellcast.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks for having us. I mean, it's honestly the biggest thing for us anymore is like we're just like test If you're not sure, like Brittany Brittany got it done at her well, check this year or this last year. I will be doing it in March, just out of curiosity, because the thing of lead is like we've said, with the symptoms, you don't know you have an exposure until you test for sure. Like you just don't know it's in your environment until you test. There are parents all the time that are, by natural, trying to be very thoughtful of the environment for their kids, that are we're still showing up for because there's something in their environment that they were not aware of, and so you can only do work off of what you know and that's kind of where knowledge on our end that we can provide is going to empower that change.
Speaker 4:So the testing is crucial.
Speaker 3:If you have a child, ask the pediatrician at their 12 to 24 month checkup to test them. It's a little fingerprint. It's not fun, nobody likes it, but that one fingerprint could save them a lifetime of health problems and everything. And if your kid is older than two and they haven't had that yet, ask your doctor again. Say I'm concerned about this. Can you just check my child and bribe your child with candy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great advice.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, you guys really are the first level of prevention to a lot of different things that can happen across the lifespan. Yeah, so thank you for all that you do with the lead prevention program. Is there anything else you guys would like to share with our listeners today? Anything we didn't cover?
Speaker 4:today Anything we didn't cover. If anybody has any suggestions on places where they think it'd be a good fit for us to do outreach or stuff, we're always open to suggestions and ideas. For example, I went to the library, presented to them and they suggested the West Jordan Library. They said, well, why don't you go to the senior centers? So then we started tabling at the senior centers during lunchtime which they've been really great, letting us in and we talked to the grandparents hey, do you have grandkids that visit your house? Because if you do, you could be causing lead poisoning for them. Right, and they're really good about engaging and that was really awesome and successful. I went and talked to doctors last night. They suggested we go to the boat show because boat paint and boat gas still has lead in it. And then when you talk about fishing, the fishing sinkers are 99% of the time lead, so it offers that opportunity for conversation there.
Speaker 4:If you have any questions about anything lead related. We are excited about the education and preventing it to a very obnoxious and unhealthy level. I love it. We are just the people you don't want to be friends with outside of work.
Speaker 3:We are just the people you don't want to be friends with outside of work?
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like your passions come through, but I love that passion. So, yeah, well, thank you both so much and don't forget to join us next month for another employee wellness well cast episode. Thank you for listening and until next time, have a healthy day.