EAST SIDE — Northwestern University researchers are kicking off a study to measure the accuracy and usefulness of at-home tests for lead in water while exploring how access to testing influences neighbors’ actions to protect themselves from lead.
The Making Water Insecurity Visible Group at Northwestern is launching a study centered around startup company Stemloop’s lead tests for tap water.
The study can pave the way for more accessible lead testing while raising awareness about the prevalence and dangers of water contamination, particularly amid Chicago’s slow push to replace its lead service lines, researchers said.
The group is recruiting 100 households for the study: 50 from Chicago’s Southeast Side, much of which is recognized by the city as an environmental justice neighborhood; and 50 from Evanston, with priority given to the suburb’s historically Black 5th Ward.
Participants must:
- Be at least 18 years old.
- Live in South Chicago, East Side, the Bush, Slag Valley, Vets Park, South Deering, Hegewisch or Evanston.
- Live in a one-unit home built before 1986.
- Be willing to have three total visits with study staffers over the course of one month — including at least one in-home visit — and to not run any water in their home for at least six hours before taking the lead test.
Participants will receive two $25 Visa gift cards, a free water filtration device with replacement filters and other resources for avoiding and addressing water contamination. For more information, email the study team at athomewatertests@gmail.com.
Accessible lead testing can “democratize knowledge about water quality,” said Sera Young, a professor of anthropology and global health at Northwestern. Young’s husband, Julius Lucks, is a Stemloop cofounder and a Northwestern engineering professor.
Concerned Chicagoans can get free lead testing kits through the Department of Water Management, though results can take up to two months to arrive via mail.
Accurate at-home tests can speed up that process, helping neighbors more quickly shift to other sources of water and hold their local officials or landlords accountable if they discover high lead levels, Young said.
“My hope is that people are empowered to make well-informed decisions,” she said. “I’m not trying to scare people off of their water.”
Lead contamination is a citywide concern, said Vanessa Bly, a research coordinator and organizer with neighborhood advocacy group Bridges//Puentes.
Chicago has by far the most lead pipes of any U.S. city, and replacing them all could take at least 40 years and $12 billion, water Commissioner Andrea Cheng told ABC7 in November.
That concern is heightened in environmental justice communities like the Southeast Side, where water contamination is just one of many threats to neighbors’ health and safety, Bly said.
Bridges//Puentes has organized a campaign for the past year encouraging Southeast Siders to mitigate the impacts of lead in their water. Hundreds of people have signed up for a city program providing free water filters and received filters directly from the group through the campaign, while organizers will help neighbors apply to have their lead service lines replaced, she said.
The Northwestern study is an exciting way to continue that work, Bly said.
“I came into this [study] feeling these results can change a lot of the views that the people in my community have,” said Bly, who lives in East Side. “I want more people to care about this issue.”
The study will explore how at-home lead tests affect the “knowledge, attitudes and behaviors” of people who use them, said Jenna Messing, program manager for the Making Water Insecurity Visible Group.
Researchers are interested in seeing whether participants use water filters, test their water for lead, clean their home or take other steps to protect themselves from lead more often after using the at-home tests and learning more about its lead levels, Messing said.
“I would like for biosensors like this to be made accessible for all these other contaminants that exist — around the United States and around the world, too,” Messing said. “I think everybody can benefit.”
Support Local News!
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click here to gift a subscription, or you can support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:
