• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- National Lead Information Center (NLIC) at 1 (800) 424-LEAD [5323].
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1 (800) 426-4791.
• U.S. National Library of Medicine, MedlinePlus, National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- Lead Poisoning.
• U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) -- Lead Safety and Health.
• U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) -- Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control (OHHLHC).
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) -- Prevention Tips, Policy Resources, Tools & Training, Publications, Data & Surveillance.
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) -- Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry -- Lead.
• Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals -- Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

Selected Papers

PubMed Publications

• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Aila Shah, Kenneth J. Berry, Daniel D. Richter, Spatial-temporal association of soil Pb and children’s blood Pb in the Detroit Tri-County Area of Michigan (USA), Environmental Research, Volume 191, August 27, 2020
• Howard W. Mielke, John A. McLachlan, Aubrey E. Schachter, Andrew D. Gailey, Sara P. Egendorf, Ruth A. Etzel, The Impact of Soil on Children’s Health, Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care, January 2020
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R Gonzales, Rolf Tore Ottesen, Marianne Langedal, Morten Jartun, Eric T Powell, Primary Health Care Consequences of Cultural Differences between New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and Oslo, Norway: Lead Contamination at Children’s Play Areas, Family Medicine and Primary Care: Open Access, December 31, 2019
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Mark A. S. Laidlaw, Kenneth J. Berry, Paul W. Mielke Jr., and Sara Perl Egendorf, The concurrent decline of soil lead and children’s blood lead in New Orleans, PNAS, October 29, 2019
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Pharmacology Research in Environmental Signaling: Life Expectancy, Invisible Lead Dust, and Proactive Intervention to Reduce Children’s Pb Exposure in New Orleans, LA (USA) , J Pharm Pharmacol Res 2017; 1 (1): 009-018
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Paul W. Mielke, Spatiotemporal exposome dynamics of soil lead and children's blood lead pre- and ten years post-Hurricane Katrina: Lead and other metals on public and private properties in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., Environmental Research 155 (2017) 208–218.
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Soil Lead and Children’s Blood Lead Disparities in Pre- and Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans (USA), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2017 Apr 12;14(4).
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Paul W. Mielke, Spatiotemporal dynamic transformations of soil lead and children's blood lead ten years after Hurricane Katrina: New grounds for primary prevention, Environment International 2016 Sep;94:567-575.
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Paul W. Mielke, Evolving from Reactive to Proactive Medicine: Community Lead (Pb) and Clinical Disparities in Pre- and Post-Katrina New Orleans, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2014, 11, 7482-7491.
• Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Paul W. Mielke, Environmental and health disparities in residential communities of New Orleans: The need for soil lead intervention to advance primary prevention, Environment International 51 (2013) 73–81.
• Yeoh B, Woolfenden S, Lanphear B, Ridley GF, Livingstone N, Household interventions for preventing domestic lead exposure in children, Cochrane Library 2012, Issue 4.
• Update: Blood lead levels - United States, 1991-1994. 1997. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 46(February 21):141-146.
• Brody, D.J., J.L. Pirkle, R.A. Kramer, K.M. Flegal, T.D. Matte, E.W. Gunter, D.C. Paschal. 1994. Blood lead levels in the US Population: Phase I of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III, 1988-1991). Journal of American Medical Association, 272(July 27):277-283
• Preventing lead poisoning in young children: A statement by the Centers of Disease Control. US Department of Health and Human Services.
• Goldman, L.R. and J. Carra. 1994. Childhood lead poisoning in 1994 (Editorial). Journal of the American Medical Association. 272(July 27):315-316.
• Jirles, B., J. Thigpen, D. Forsythe. 1997. Lead in drinking water: A preventive solution. Environmental Health Perspective, 105(January):15.
• Kessel, I. and J. O'Connor. 1997. Getting the lead out. Plenum Publishing.
• Meadows, Robin. 1996. Growing pains. Environmental Health Perspectives, 104(February):146-149.
• Menkes, D.B. and J.P. Fawcett. 1997. Too easily lead? Health effects of gasoline additives. Environmental Health Perspectives, 105(March):270-273.

• Help Make New Orleans Lead-Safe for Children -- Howard W. Mielke, Department of Pharmacology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans.
• There is no known safe level of lead exposure and children under 3 are at especially high risk -- Mielke HW, Gonzales CR, Powell ET. Department of Pharmacology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans.
• Urban Gardening: Managing the Risks of Contaminated Soil -- "Interest in urban agriculture has grown as residents seek to revitalize cities and improve access to fresh produce. Investigators are figuring out how to maximize the benefits of gardening while minimizing the risks of contaminated urban soils", Environmental Health Perspectives.

Report: Using Google Earth to Visualize and Interact with the New Orleans soil legacy Pb and blood Pb data before and after Hurricane Katrina

The New Orleans soil legacy Pb and blood Pb data collections and studies were conducted before Katrina and repeated 15-19 years after Katrina by Howard Mielke, Chris Gonzales, and Eric Powell at Tulane University in cooperation with Trina Evans and Ngoc Huynh of the Louisiana Department of Health Healthy Homes and Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.  All data for the Pre-K and post-K surveys have been packaged into a Google Earth kmz (keyhole markup language zipped) file.  It is part of our responsibility to share this report with the citizens of New Orleans.

Follow these instructions to view the project: 

1. Download Google Earth Pro
   
   
2. Install Google Earth Pro and launch.
   
   
3. Important: If you are not familiar with Google Earth, read the introductory users guide found at: https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/google_earth/UserGuide.html
   
   
4. Download KMZ file: New Orleans Pb surveys soil & children
   
   
5. Locate downloaded kmz file and double click on it.
   
1. The file will open in Google Earth.  Please note that this file contains a lot of data and it may take some time to load on slower computers.
2. The kmz file will appear as new item called “Temporary Places” in the layers pane on the left side of Google Earth.
3. In that pane, uncheck the box called New Orleans Pb surveys soil & children. The file has six items which correspond to layers on the map. To view the layers, expand by clicking the little black arrow to the left of the box.
   
6. Check the boxes for the following layers:
1. Pre-Katrina Pb kriged.
2. Post-Katrina Pb kriged.
3. Soil Pb kriged (legend).
4. Toggling between the two maps can be accomplished by turning on and off the Post-Katrina Pb kriged subheading. The legend applies to both sets of soil samples.
7. Check the box for the Census Tract Soil and Blood Pb layer. Move your mouse to a blue-bordered Census Tract and click.  The pop-up window lists information about median Soil Pb & Blood Pb for both surveys.  If you move your mouse into a blue-bordered census tract and see a hand cursor, keep moving your mouse within that area until you see an actual arrow cursor.  Then you can click and see the information.
   
   Example: Census Tract 274 information below describes the information for each layer.
   CTract 274.00 (Census tract number -1990 tract numbers)
   Pre-K SPb 82 (median soil Pb, Pre-K survey)
   Post-K SPb 25 (median soil Pb, Post-K survey)
   SPb Units mg/kg (units also referred to as ppm)
   Pre-K N BPb 217 (number of children tested, Pre-K)
   Post-K N BPb 63 (number of children tested, Post-K)
   Pre-K BPb 3.7 (median blood Pb Pre-K)
   Post-K BPb 1.2 (median blood Pb, Post-K)
   BPb Units µg/dL (micrograms of Pb per deciliter of blood)
   
   
8. Look up individual sample results for Pre-Katrina (green) and/or for Post-Katrina survey (blue) sample collection sites. The individual samples are listed as Foundation (FND), residential street (STR), busy street (BST), open space (OPS).

Brief Discussion: The environmental Pb chemistry of the city plays an important role in multiple health issues which are associated with socioeconomic disparities in New Orleans. Soil legacy Pb is invisible. This kmz file contains novel information about the decades-long continuing decline of environmental Pb and children's Pb exposure. Knowledge about the dynamic Pb chemistry of the urban environment and its spatiotemporal distribution provides a tool for primary prevention of children's Pb exposure.

Acknowledgements: The 2013-2017 survey was funded by The Ling and Ronald Cheng Fund, Alan S. Drake, Al French and MaryAn Godshall, Allen and Laura Carmen, Paul W. Jr. and Roberta R. Mielke, Thomas Beller, Jack Eichenbaum, Gabriel Filippelli, members of the Community Church Unitarian Universalist, and the Department of Pharmacology. None of the funders were involved in study design, collection, analysis and interpretation, and writing the report.