Integrating Soil and Human Health through Citizen Science: Domestic and International Examples.

Soil-borne sources of lead (Pb) exposure continue to have a profound negative impact on community health. Soil lead has been linked to child exposure, based largely on observed seasonality of resuspended soil-dust and child blood lead levels ^1–6. Soil Pb concentrations can vary from neighborhood to home, highlighting the need for high-resolution sampling. Testing soils for Pb is the first crucial step in identifying and prioritizing areas for remediation and intervention. The premise of our approach applied so far in Indianapolis, New York, and Peru is that public participation in sampling and testing could be particularly effective for protecting child health.

The Safe Urban Gardening Initiative conducted in Indianapolis involves citizens in the soil collection process, providing them with instructions to collect samples, and to interpret these results through recommendations based on their level of soil contamination. New York City residents have become involved in soil collection and analysis by deploying a new field test kit for bio-accessible Pb. Results to date suggest private gardens rather than public spaces might be the principal source of child soil Pb exposure⁷. The same field kit, deployed by caregivers in a few Peruvian mining towns, uncovered an area highly contaminated with Pb that had been overlooked by a prior survey using a hand-held X-ray fluorescence analyzer⁸.

These recent experiences indicate that, in addition to providing citizens with crucial data to make informed health decisions, public participation increases the density of sampling, especially in private locations, and leads to a better understanding of the characteristics and distribution of a contaminant. In the future, variations of these approaches could be adapted to engage individuals to assess and address their community's environmental health in the U.S. and abroad.