2014

Examining Lead Levels in

Eau Claire County Wisconsin.
GEOG 435
CHRISTENSON, EMILY RENAE
Project Background
The purpose of this research project is to identify variables that relate to elevated
lead levels in children with the goal of identifying risks that can be targeted for mitigation.
To accomplish this, the spatial relationship between lead levels in children and
socioeconomic variables will be explored. The questions to be answered are as follows:
Where is there significant clustering of elevated lead levels in children in Eau Claire County
Wisconsin? Has the distribution of elevated lead levels changed over time? What
socioeconomic factors impact the distribution of elevated lead levels in children? The study
area of this project is Eau Claire County Wisconsin. Eau Claire County is located in West-
Central Wisconsin and has a population of approximately 100,000. The county seat and
largest city is Eau Claire.
The target audience for this project is the residents of Eau Claire County that want
to become more informed about lead contamination. The results will be provided to and
presented to the public by the Eau Claire City-County Health Department. This research
will help the health department understand the geographic and socioeconomic distribution
of lead levels in children. Additionally, the health department can use the results for
targeted outreach.
The main objective of this project is to identify variables that have a strong
relationship with elevated lead levels in children in Eau Claire County. A second objective is
to identify if there is significant clustering of elevated lead levels in Eau Claire County. A
third objective is to identify a group, based on significant variable relationships, of Eau
Claire County residents to whom the health department may be interested in increasing
outreach efforts. The final objective is to raise public awareness of lead contamination and
poisoning in children.
Data
The main data requirements for this research project include lead levels in children
and socioeconomic data such as average age of homes, vacant homes, and ethnicity. The
lead data were obtained from the Eau Claire City-County Health Department. The data were
collected via the Wisconsin WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program, which tests lead
levels of participating children annually through age five. The data provided are for January
of 2000 to January of 2014. The data were provided as a Microsoft Excel Worksheet
containing the following information: addresses, lead levels, collection date, and case
status. The data include Eau Claire and several surrounding counties. Measured lead levels
range from 0 to 27 g/dL (micrograms per deciliter). According to the CDC, a measured
blood level of 5 g/dL or above for children ages 0 to 5 is above the majority of children in
the United States and is used as the level of reference for establishing case management
(CDC, 2012). Initial processing will be done to exclude all data that lie outside of the study
area. The data will be divided into tables by year to assist processing. Additional processing
will be done to geocode the addresses and aggregate the data to the census block group
level to preserve privacy.
The socioeconomic data will be obtained from the U.S. Census Bureaus American
Fact Finder for the 2000 decennial census. The variables will be collected from a Summary
File 1 General Housing Characteristics dataset, a Summary File 3 Physical Housing
Characteristics sample dataset, and a Summary File 1 Population dataset.

Project Approach
Spatial Regression Analysis and Hot Spot Analysis will be used to explore the
questions for this project. Regression analysis is used to analyze the relationship between a
dependent variable and many independent variables. This is useful for combining physical
and human data such as contamination and socioeconomic factors. Zeilhofer et al. used
logistic regression to determine if waterborne illnesses in sample households are
associated with any of the following variables: elevation, number of rooms, reservoir
protection, reservoir cleaning, distance, and new supply networks (Zeilhofer et al., 2012).
Hot spot analysis is used to show where a phenomena occurs and if there is clustering
present. Aelion et al. used Inverse Distance Weighed interpolation for collected lead level
soil samples and examined the results for hot spots. In this study, they found that more
African-Americans lived in areas with high lead levels than Caucasians (Aelion et al., 2012).
Once the initial data processing has been accomplished, a few steps will be used to
further prepare the data for the regression analysis. The geocoded addresses will be
aggregated to the census block group level. For each year, a spatial join will be performed
to attach the lead level data to the census block group polygons. Various statistics will also
be given to each census block group, such as the average, minimum, maximum, median,
range, and count of the lead levels. The Hot Spot Analysis tool will be used to determine if
there is a change in the distribution over time. The tool will be run for each year from 2003
to 2013 using the count field as the measured value.
For the Spatial Regression Analysis, the aggregated data will be merged and
examined in two intervals: 2000-2009 and 2010-2013. The 2000 Physical Housing
Characteristics census data will be used for all regression analysis while the 2000 and 2010
General Housing Characteristics data will be used for the appropriate analysis interval.
Additional variables will be joined to the census block groups from the Physical Housing
Characteristics and the General Housing Characteristics datasets. These variables include
average age of home, percent vacant housing units, and percent non-white. The Ordinary
Least Squares tool will be run with the count field as the dependent variable and the
additional variables as independent variables for each interval. The results for each
interval will be examined for accuracy via the R
2
value and graphing the residuals. If the
results are not statistically acceptable, the Geographically Weighed Regression tool will be
used with the same variables.
Expected Results
The results of the analysis will be presented in the form of an informative website.
The website will contain web maps of the various factors to show how they relate to lead
levels. Also, an interactive web map will created to display the change over time of the
distribution of elevated lead levels in Eau Claire County. Additional information about lead
contamination, testing, and prevention will be obtained from the health department and
incorporated into the website. The website will be produced using Adobe Dreamweaver. At
the conclusion of the project, the results will be presented to the Eau Claire City-County
Health Department. The web maps, data, and results will be provided to the Health
Department to be used for public awareness and information sessions.
Conclusion
The main objective of this research project is to increase public awareness of lead
contamination and identify one or more variables that will assist the Eau Claire City-County
Health Department to increase and focus outreach efforts. The questions to be approached
are: Where is there significant clustering of elevated lead levels in children in Eau Claire
County Wisconsin? Has the distribution of elevated lead levels changed over time? What
socioeconomic factors impact the distribution of elevated lead levels in children? Hot Spot
Analysis will be used to examine if a change in the distribution has occurred over time.
Spatial Regression Analysis will be used to examine if the distribution is effected by one or
more socioeconomic factors. The resulting website and web maps will serve as an easy way
for the public to learn about lead contamination and determine if their children might be at
risk.

References
Aelion, C., Davis, H., Lawson, A., Cai, B., McDermott, S. (2012). Associations between Soil
Lead Concentrations and Populations by Race/Ethnicity and Income-To-Poverty
Ratio in Urban and Rural Areas. Environmental Geochemistry & Health, 35(1), 1-12.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2012, October 30). What Do Parents Need to
Know to Protect Their Children? Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/ACCLPP/blood_lead_levels.htm
Zeilhofer, P., Zeilhofer, L., Hardoim, E., Lima, Z., & Oliveira, C. (2007). GIS Applications for
Mapping and Spatial Modeling of Urban-Use Water Quality: A Case Study in District
Of Cuiab, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Cadernos De Sade Pblica, 23(4), 875-884.