[Thorpe] Welcome to Beyond the Data.
I'm Dr. Phoebe Thorpe, and here
with me today is Dr. Mona Hannah -
Attisha a pediatrician from Flint, Michigan.
[Attisha] Thanks.
It's great to be here.
[Thorpe] Thank you so much for joining us.
[Attisha] Thank you.
[Thorpe] Today's session was
about preventing childhood lead poisoning.
One of the problems with it is
that lead poisoning isn't always really apparent in children.
What is being done to increase awareness
of the childhood lead poisoning and prevent it?
[Attisha] Yeah.
So really before Flint we as a nation thought we took care
of lead that it was a problem of yesterday
and lead levels had been coming down.
We got lead out of paint lead out of gasoline
and what Flint has really reminded us is
that it's a problem of yesterday it's a of problem today
and it's a problem of tomorrow.
And it's unfortunately a problem that we can't really see.
Kids don't present with acute lead poisoning as they used
to do decades ago but,
incredible science has now taught us
that there is no safe level of lead exposure and that we have
to be even more vigilant about finding that lead
in our environment before children are exposed.
So what's happening right now is increased awareness really
because of Flint nationally about what lead does to children
and how we can really be proactive
and do the primary prevention work which means taking the lead
in the environment before children are ever exposed.
[Thorpe] Yeah, what happened in Flint is just a tragedy,
just a tragedy, but you are very gracious in your presentation
to talk about how you've taken that tragedy
and transformed it into beauty.
What what have you done, what have you
in the Flint community done to do that?
[Attisha] Yeah.
You know from the moment that we realized
that we had this population wide lead exposure on top of really
so many toxicities toxicities of poverty and violence
and all these things that impact the development of children.
When we realized we had this added toxic stress,
we really rolled up our sleeves and began to work hand-in-hand
with our community partners to make sure
that our children did not see the consequences
of of this crisis.
So what we've been able to put in place has really been reliant
on science respecting the science of lead's neurotoxicity
but really also respecting the emerging signs
of child development and resilience in toxic stress
and putting into place holistic evidence-based development
promoting interventions.
Things like home visiting programs, and early childcare,
universal preschool, school health services,
nutrition support, Medicaid expansion.
All these things that we know
that science has taught us promote the development
of children.
So really taking a wraparound approach
to mitigating the impact of this crisis.
[Thorpe] So it's, it's a lot.
There's a lot that's going on.
What what has been important?
I'm sure there's a lot of partnerships in support.
How have you been able to bring those together?
[Attisha] Absolutely, all of this work is hand-in-hand
with different levels of government, with academia,
with philanthropy, with nonprofit organizations,
but our most important partner have been the people of Flint.
Working hand-in-hand with the people of Flint.
And my initiative we actually have a parent partner group
where we meet with parents who advise us and inform our work.
And even more important, that we have a group
of children the Flint Kids Justice League.
They just renamed themselves that we meet with routinely
that also tell us what we should be doing.
So our work is community informed, community driven,
and community participatory.
[Thorpe] Wow, that's fabulous to hear that.
It's really, really awesome.
If other community, I know other communities are
with this increase awareness other communities are becoming
aware of the lead problems that they are facing.
Where, what would you tell them to look for in
when they're building their coalitions?
What made them successful?
[Attisha] Yeah, I think really having kind of an open mind.
You know, as a pediatrician,
before all this I thought we kind of had a monopoly
on caring for children.
Like who cares about kids more than pediatricians,
and I was proven wrong time and time again
because so do educators, and so do moms, and so do journalists,
and so do engineers, and so do landlords,
and so do you know so many other folks.
So build a really big team, a diverse team, a multisector team
of folks who care by the same thing especially when you try
to do something that involves many bisectors
like lead elimination work.
[Thorpe] And I know in the presentation they talked
about too about government and there's the get the lead
out with private partnerships.
There's a lot of different things that are going on
and places to look for information.
If somebody was interested in knowing more where,
where could they look for it?
[Attisha] Yeah, I think there's a lot
of great resources out there.
The CDC.gov website
of specifically the the lead page has a lot
of great resources and great lengths to learn more
about what what you can do and what you need to look for.
[Thorpe] And what about your public health initiative?
[Attisha] Yeah, so we have just won something called the Flint
Registry which is funded by CDC flintregistry.org.
If you click on there you'll also find out what's happening
in Flint and also get links to some
of our other work that we're doing.
[Thorpe] Okay.
It sounds like it's fabulous work
and really really appreciate what you've done.
[Attisha] Thank you.
It's an honor to be here with you Phoebe.
Thank you.
[Thorpe] Thank you.
And thank you so much for joining us for Beyond the Data.
See you next time.