Does Community Connectedness Help Parents Protect Kids from Toxicants? Exploring the Association between Protective Social Factors and Preventive Behaviors Directed toward Children in an Ethnically Diverse, Environmentally Contaminated Context

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Barbara L. Norton, MPH, Department of Health Promotion Sciences, University of Oklahoma, School of Public Health, P.O. Box 26901, Oklahoma City, OK 73109, (405)271-2017, Barbara-Norton@ouhsc.edu, Michelle Kegler, DrPH, Department of Behavioral Science and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, PhD, MPH, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of New Mexico, MSC09 5060, 1 University of New Mexico, Alburquerque, NM 87131-0001, Barbara R. Neas, PhD, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 801 NE 13th Street, CHB 325, Oklahoma City, OK 73117, and Robert John, PhD, Health Promotion Sciences, University of Oklahoma College of Public Health, P.O. Box 26901, Oklahoma City, OK 73109.

Despite dramatic declines in prevalence, lead poisoning remains the most devastating childhood environmental disease especially for those who are poor and minority. Moreover, as blood lead levels have declined, studies have better documented the lack of any safe threshold to lead's adverse neurobehavioral effects. Public policy and intervention resources have focused on the problem of lead-based paint in older homes, but in select areas of the country the threat of exposure to mining waste contaminated with heavy metal particulates is a problem that has been largely unaddressed. One such site is located in the former lead and zinc-rich region of northeast Oklahoma where Superfund status and remediation activities for more than two decades have made only modest headway in protecting its young residents from lead exposure. As a result, health promotion researchers have partnered with environmental specialists to identify factors associated with the parental practice of lead-protective behaviors for children. This research asks whether protective social factors like sense of community and civic/social participation, mediated by psychosocial factors, make a difference in the extent to which parents employ effective practices directed toward childhood lead poisoning prevention. A random sample of American Indian and white families with young children (n=380) was surveyed. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses will be presented that indicate whether protective social factors make a difference in predicting parental behaviors and whether the findings differ based on residential proximity to environmental contamination.