Chen, Alice. 2018. “Lead Risk in Southern California" In California at Risk, a class project for “Ethnographic Methods,” Anthropology 215a University of California Irvine, Fall 2018. http://disaster-sts-network.org/content/californias-environmental-data-c...
What changes over the last four decades have shaped the construction and maintenance of drinking water infrastructures in different parts of Southern California, producing uneven infrastructural incapacity?
What intersecting systems and scales are producing unevenly distributed water infrastructure incapacities in contemporary (Southern) California? More specifically, what are the infrastructural causes of lead poisoning?
The left three images are taken from the World Health Organization (WHO) website on lead poisoning. The photo on the bottom is the main photo on the website. The one on the top left is the cover for a booklet on lead poisoning published by WHO and the photo in top middle is from a photoseries on environmental health from WHO. All three point to a particular population, mainly brown and black and in a third world country, as being the most susceptible to lead poisoning even though a study done by scientists at Simon Fraser University estimates that lead exposure contributes to 400,000 deaths per year in the US. Result of study is on the right.
Click here for link to lead risk map in CA schools.
A semi-complete lead risk map. Available data was assembled by Reuters, but data was unavailable for many places. California withholds data for places that screened fewer than 250 students.
Link to San Diego County Department of Public Health and Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act
Link to Orange County Department of Public Health and Lead Prevention Program
Link to Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and Lead Prevention Program
Link to Ventura County Health Care Agency and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
Link to San Bernandino County and Lead Prevention
Lead risk map from Vox (working with the Washington State Department of Health). The researchers used the age of houses (lead paint) and poverty to estimate risk. Lead risk hotspots tend to be concentrated in urban areas (see LA and San Diego), particularly old industrial areas. States with large swaths of rural areas are also more vulnerable to exposure. Maps like this are very rarely created because cities and states are not required to report data on lead poisoning. As a result, there is a gap in knowledge and data. This map attempts to solve this issue by making visible places that are potentially at risk for lead and thus, in need of intervention.
This document is a brief history of statewide water management as well as national and CA state lead policies. This artifact brings together multiple histories in an attempt to trace lead poisoning in CA.Read more
This document charts the ways this project develops our understandings of late industrialism, and in turn, how late industrialism, as an analytic, increases our understanding of lead poisoning.Read more
Two infographics on lead exposure and common sources of lead exposure, the left is from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the right is from WHO. The information in these two infographics points to lack of knowledge in the public on lead risk and lead poisoning. How much lead exposure is safe? Where are the sources of lead?
Lead poisoning afflicts hundreds of areas across Los Angeles County, from affluent hubs to low income or gentrifying areas, Reuters finds. The results surprised some local leaders, showing how lead hazards persist even in a health-conscious region.
Chen, Alice. 2018. “Designating Late Industrialism” In “Lead Risk and Information Distrubtion" In California at Risk, a class project for “Ethnographic Methods,” Anthropology 215a University of California Irvine, Fall 2018....Read more