NYC Children Under 6 with Elevated Blood Lead Levels, by Borough and Year

Annual data from New York City on children younger than 6 years old tested for lead poisoning, showing counts and rates for blood lead levels at or above 5, 10, and 15 mcg/dL thresholds. The data is provided by data.cityofnewyork.us and was last updated on February 8, 2020. It is based on mandatory testing for NYC children at ages 1 and 2, with risk-based screening up to age 6.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in lead exposure rates over time using the `time_period` and various `Rate` columns.
• Comparing the prevalence of high-exposure cases across NYC boroughs using `geo_area_name`, `borough_id`, and `Number BLL>=15 µg/dL`.
• Assessing testing coverage and case detection by correlating `Number Tested` with counts of elevated cases at different thresholds.
• Modeling geographic risk factors for lead poisoning by joining `geo_area_id` with external neighborhood-level data.

Strengths

• Data is structured with clear geographic breakdowns via `geo_area_name` and `borough_id`.
• Provides multiple severity thresholds (>=5, >=10, >=15 µg/dL) for nuanced analysis.
• Includes both raw counts and normalized rates per 1,000 tested for comparative analysis.

Limitations

• Last updated 2020-02-08 00:47:46; freshness should be verified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Some columns contain `_NOTES` suffixes, suggesting possible data quality annotations that require manual inspection.

Provenance

Source

data.cityofnewyork.us

Collection Method

Likely collected from mandatory lead poisoning testing and screening of NYC children as required by law.

Freshness

Last updated 2020-02-08 00:47:46.

Geography

New York City, with breakdowns by borough and potentially other geographic areas (`geo_area_name`).