What is a screening program worth?
Run the numbers for your own program. Every figure below is federal or peer-reviewed, and the sources are listed at the bottom. Nothing you type is stored.
$500
total screening cost
30
homes flagged for a closer look
3
exposures headed off
253×
return on the screening spend
Where the money figure comes from
$42,226
What one lost IQ point costs in lifetime earnings. This is EPA's own valuation, used in the October 2024 Lead and Copper Rule Improvements economic analysis, in 2022 dollars, discounted to age 7.
~$112,000
Lifetime societal cost of one child with a blood lead level in the 5 to 9.9 µg/dL band. This calculator uses that figure per exposure headed off. Two independent methods, a Pew/Altarum model and EPA's own dose-response curve, land within one percent of each other.
7,840
Pennsylvania children confirmed with an elevated blood lead level in 2023, out of only 166,915 tested. That is about one in five children under six getting tested at all.
Sources: US EPA, Economic Analysis for the Final Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, EPA 810-R-24-005, October 2024, Exhibit 5-25. Health Impact Project (Pew Charitable Trusts and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), 10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure, 2017, Figure 3. Pennsylvania Department of Health, 2023 Childhood Lead Surveillance Annual Report. Gould E., Environ Health Perspect 2009;117(7):1162-1167. The "share where you act" input is yours to set. This is a planning tool, not a promise.