Starting today, the state will reduce the safety threshold for lead in children's blood, meaning that more kids will be identified with lead poisoning and more houses will need to undergo abatement measures.

Starting today, the state will reduce the safety threshold for lead in children's blood, meaning that more kids will be identified with lead poisoning and more houses will need to undergo abatement measures.

Ohio is following a move by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said John Belt, field-services section administrator for the Ohio Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

Two years ago, the CDC lowered the threshold for determining lead poisoning in children ages 6 or younger from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to 5 micrograms. The CDC recommended that states follow suit.

Belt said the new standard could mean that an additional 7,600 children statewide have lead levels now considered elevated. Under the current standard, 1,591 children statewide would be considered as having elevated lead levels.

"The state statute requires us to follow the CDC guidance," Belt said.

Columbus will follow suit, too, said Kim Stands, the city's assistant housing administrator. "We'll use that as our standard."

"We will definitely be following state guidelines," said Jose Rodriguez, spokesman for Columbus Public Health.

The city will contact families with children who have elevated lead levels at the lower threshold, ask questions about their living conditions and advise them on what steps to take, said Luke Jacobs, the environmental-health section chief for Columbus Public Health. But Jacobs said it's too early to say whether their houses will be referred to the city's lead-abatement program.

The city recently received $3.5 million in federal funding to address lead in 250 houses where low-income families live. Columbus has made 513 housing units lead-safe since 2007. The federal money is being matched with $875,000 from the city.

The city also received a new $400,000 federal grant to supplement its Healthy Homes Program, enabling inspectors to test lead-tainted houses for mold and other safety hazards during their lead examinations.

City health inspectors now will assess 250 homes over three years that are suspected of having lead-based paint. The federal government banned lead in paint in 1978.

"We see it as a great opportunity to provide additional assessments for the city of Columbus to identify hazards for people who live in those homes," Jacobs said.

The city typically inspects 100 houses annually through the Healthy Homes Program, he said, though not all of them have lead paint. He said the city will begin doing the additional work in the next two or three months.

Belt said the state, which works with counties outside urban areas, teaches residents in houses with elevated lead levels how to better clean them.

Exposure to high levels of lead can damage a child's kidneys, slow body growth and harm mental development.

The percentage of Ohio children 6 or younger who test positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood has decreased steadily since 1999, from 8.7 percent then to 0.8 percent in 2013, according to state figures..

Columbus has seen its figures decrease, too. In 1996 in the city, 720 children were found to have high levels of lead - at least

10 micrograms - in their blood. Ten years later, that was down to 88, or less than 1 percent of those tested. In 2013, the number with lead levels higher than 10 was 79, or 0.51 percent of those tested, but that was up from 45, or 0.31 percent of those tested, in 2012.

The number of children with levels between 5 micrograms and 9 micrograms dropped from 937 in 2009 to 249 last year. Still, Jacobs said: "There is no safe level of lead."

About 187,000 housing units in Columbus likely have lead paint, Stands said.

Columbus cleans houses when blood tests show elevated lead levels in young children. Stands said the more-stringent blood-level standard could increase the number of houses where the city does abatement work because families with affected children will now be referred to the cleanup program. That might decrease the number of vacant rental houses the city makes lead-safe.

Belt said 2.5 million housing units in Ohio were built before 1950; about 90 percent of those units have lead paint. An additional 1 million were built between 1950 and 1978, when lead paint was banned; about 40 percent of those units have lead paint.

According to the CDC, the percentage of children 1 to 2 years old being screened for lead nationwide rose from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 33.4 percent in 2010.

mferenchik@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik