For Immediate Release: May 28, 2004

Baltimore, MD -- Low-income, minority children who predominantly live in housing constructed before 1955 and before 1978 are most at-risk of lead exposure and poisoning. Because this type of housing unit is common in Baltimore's Empowerment Zones, children within the zones have tested at blood lead levels considered poisoning by the Centers for Disease Control. Acknowledgement of these ramifications prompted the Empower Baltimore Management Corporation to allocate $2 million and partner with the Baltimore City Health Department to remove lead from hundreds of homes.

Optimal quantified the return on investment of this initiative in preventing negative outcomes and saving city, state, and private costs incurred by exposure to lead. Optimal determined a range of savings from $949,436 to $8,752,240, or a return on investment between -45 percent and 338 percent. Of this range the most realistic return determined by the moderate scenario is between $3,745,031 and $4,862,141 over ten years. In order to determine the adequacy of this return on investment, it would be beneficial to compare the rate of return on lead paint abatement efforts to that of other EBMC initiatives and similar programs in other major cities. Read the the complete report.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a minority-owned economic and policy analysis consulting firm in the Baltimore-Annapolis-Washington, DC area.  We are committed to supplying insightful program evaluation, cost-benefit and effectiveness analyses, custom econometric modeling, and market analyses for decisionmakers in both the public and private sectors.

OPTIMAL has served the needs of numerous governmental and commercial clients, including federal and state agencies, community-based organizations, business associations, and law firms.