HIGHLIGHTS
- Approaches to inform a health-based benchmark for lead in drinking water were needed.
- Abt staff developed and implemented several approaches.
- We provided EPA with a range of drinking water concentrations that will alter blood lead levels for children and infants
The Challenge
Abt Global provided technical assistance to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water to support the development of a draft report outlining potential approaches to inform a health-based benchmark for lead in drinking water.
The Approach
Abt staff developed and implemented several approaches to evaluate how distributions of blood lead levels for potentially susceptible populations change with increasing exposures to lead in drinking water, while also considering non-drinking water sources of lead exposure.
The Results
We used EPA’s Integrated Exposure Uptake and Biokinetic Model for lead to provide EPA with a range of drinking water concentrations that will alter blood lead levels for children and infants. The work to date has required cross-agency collaboration to ensure the best available science is used in the blood lead modeling efforts. Read the draft version of the full report.