More children were found to have elevated blood lead levels in 2024 compared to the prior year, but more were tested last year as well.
The Monroe County Department of Public Health recently released the numbers on child lead exposure testing. In 2024, 13,582 were tested for lead poisoning, and 299 were found to have elevated blood lead levels.
The number of children tested last year was 6% higher than in 2023, when the number was 12,788. Of those, 241 were found to have elevated blood lead levels.
"The biggest thing is that it's still out there," said Starr O'Neil, the Monroe County health department's manager of environmental health. "There's still things to be done."
O'Neil said some year-to-year variations in the numbers are expected. A spike in the number of children with elevated blood lead levels would be concerning, but that's not what the county is seeing.
Clare Henrie, program director for the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning, said the number of children being screened for lead exposure has been rising since 2022, following a pandemic-era dip. She added that increase is a good thing because " it gives us a more accurate, albeit upsetting, picture" of which children are affected by lead exposure.
"It's actually, in a weird way, encouraging to see how many kids were screened in 2024 and then the numbers show, obviously, that we continue to need prevention efforts here in Rochester especially, but all of Monroe County," Henrie said.
State law requires all children to be tested for lead poisoning at 1 and 2 years old. It also requires health care providers to screen all children up to age 6 for their risk of lead exposure, and to test any child deemed at risk. Children exposed to lead are at higher risk for learning disabilities and behavioral problems.
More information is available from the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning and on the county's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program web page.
