“Take-home” exposure is when dangerous contaminants come home on workers’ bodies and clothing, unintentionally exposing their families and causing issues including child lead poisoning.
And lead dust from construction is a particularly dramatic take-home exposure here in the Boston area, according to a new study by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Published in the journal Environmental Research, the study found that construction workers had twice as much lead dust in their homes as janitorial or autobody workers. Some homes had lead dust at levels that have been recorded in homes near Superfund sites and lead smelters—or Boston homes in the early ‘90s, back when the gasoline burned by Boston traffic was leaded. Read more.