Community health centers and blood lead testing of immigrant house painters

Approximately 60% of the housing units in Massachusetts have lead paint, and surface preparation for painting of lead-painted houses can generate extremely high lead exposures. Although OSHA regulations require blood lead (BL) testing under such circumstances, relatively few house painters are tested in Massachusetts or elsewhere. An exception occurs in the greater Boston area, where a network of community health centers, in cooperation with a hospital-based occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) clinic, routinely ask the occupations of their patients (many of whom are Brazilian immigrants), and conduct BL testing if they are house painters. This health center procedure comes as the result of OEM grand rounds, medical resident seminars, patient consults and referrals. As a result, the state's occupational lead poisoning registry receives a relatively high number of BL tests for Brazilian house painters, compared to other house painters.