New website and resources available to help parents and families protect themselves from lead in their drinking water

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The Kellogg Foundation, in partnership with the Horsley Witten Group, has launched a website and released commissioned fact sheets to help parents and families protect themselves from lead in their drinking water. 

Lead in drinking water can cause significant health problems, particularly for children. Furthermore, children of color and children living in low-income communities bear a disproportionately high burden of lead exposures and lead toxicity. Slow development, behavioral problems and brain damage can all be direct results of lead exposure. The Kellogg Foundation is committed to addressing persistent racial and economic inequities that undermine the health and well-being of children, especially children of color whose health and lives are affected by multiple societal factors.

To help address this issue, the foundation and the Horsley Witten Group have created two fact sheets for parents and families: one for those who own their own homes and one for those who rent. Together with a website, these resources will provide parents and families with the information they need to identify, address and prevent lead exposure in their drinking water at home.

 “A family’s home should be safe and nurturing; a place where children have the supportive environment they need for a healthy start,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of WKKF. “That makes it doubly important that as a foundation and a community, we provide families with the resources they need to create the best conditions in their homes for children to grow and thrive. That starts with making sure children have safe water to drink.”

This release is a follow up to the previously released report, “Managing Lead in Drinking Water in Schools and Early Childhood Education Facilities,” which provided comprehensive best practices for lead sampling and analysis in schools and early childhood education facilities across the country.
Learn more about what homeowners and renters can do to protect their families from lead in their drinking water at home, and share these resources with others. Visit http://www.drinkingwateralliance.org/lead for more information.