CLEVELAND — Officials in Cleveland consider the city’s lead poisoning rate a critical public health crisis.  

What You Need To Know

  • Data from Case Western Reserve University shows the rate of lead poisoning in Cleveland is nearly four times higher than the national average, with about 13% of kids testing for high lead levels. In some neighborhoods, one in four kids are affected
  • In 1999, Robin Brown founded Collective Citizens Organized Against Lead (CCOAL) after her daughter got lead poisoning from their home

  • Through CCOAL, Brown has created a community of those directly impacted by lead in Northeast Ohio. They distribute information to their neighbors, advocate for better protections against lead and provide a place for parents to turn when their child is poisoned

  • While most of the people who join their coalition have already been impacted by lead, Brown encourages people to get informed and involved before it’s too late

“When you cannot protect your child, you feel like a failure,” said Robin Brown, founder of Collective Citizens Organized Against Lead (CCOAL).

She founded the group after her daughter’s diagnosis of severe lead poisoning from their home in 1999.

“We’re not just an organization coming up to work with this,” she said. “We are living with this, with our daily lives.”

Data from Case Western Reserve University shows the rate of lead poisoning in Cleveland is nearly four times higher than the national average, with about 13% of kids testing for high lead levels. In some neighborhoods, one in four kids are affected. For context, Flint, Michigan was reporting 7-10% of their children were getting poisoned at the height of their crisis.

The Centers for Disease Control has found there is no safe level of lead in a child’s blood, and just 5 micrograms per deciliter have been associated with lower IQ levels and challenges in school. The effects of lead poisoning can be life-lasting for a person’s development, and there is no cure.

Brown said it was devastating to learn this after her daughter’s diagnosis, and at the time, there weren’t many resources for parents in her position.  

“As parents, we have no recourse for this happening to our children,” she said. “No one’s being held accountable for doing this to children.”

Through CCOAL, Brown has created a community of those directly impacted by lead in Northeast Ohio. They distribute information to their neighbors, advocate for better protections against lead and provide a place for parents to turn when their child is poisoned.

“We know what we need,” Brown said. “So, being that we’re not getting what we’re needing, we’re coming up with it and finding the resources to bring it to ourselves.”

Brown has noticed the city making an effort to do more to address the crisis in recent years, but after 25 years of advocating for change, she’s hesitant to get hopeful. Every day the crisis isn’t addressed, more children are poisoned.

“It’s devastating to me, not getting it right, not getting it right,” Brown said.

Five years ago, Mandale Duncan joined CCOAL after his granddaughter tested for high lead levels from their home in Lyndhurst.

“I started to spread the word that you don’t have to live in a neighborhood that’s impoverished to do it, you could live in one of the best of the best or middle-class neighborhoods and still be affected by it,” Duncan said.

While most of the people who join their coalition have already been impacted by lead, Brown encourages people to get informed and involved before it’s too late.

Either way, she won’t stop fighting until the threat is gone from her community.

“Now that I’ve been in this for 25 years, as a parent, I felt all kids were my kids,” she said.

If you or someone you know has a child who is testing for high levels of lead in their blood, talk to your doctor about treatment and then contact your local health department to do an inspection of your home and identify whether it could be the source of your child’s poisoning.