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The Deteriorated Paint Index (DPI) data predicts areas at-risk of containing several pre-1980 households with large areas of deteriorated paint, a significant and common predictor of lead dust. Funding for remediation and abatement is limited. To adequately target households eligible for home remediation and associated intervention efforts, local healthy homes and environmental health program administrators must identify neighborhoods that are the most “at risk” of residential lead exposure where deteriorated paint is the primary source. To address this need, the DPI uses household-level data to predict a household’s risk of deteriorated paint. 

Predicted risk scores were calculated using microdata from the 2011 American Housing Survey (AHS) and the 2009-2013 American Community Survey (ACS) to develop a predicted risk measure. This metric estimates the predicted percentage of occupied housing units with large areas of deteriorated paint for three geographic levels: state, county, and tract. The primary methodological goal of the analysis was to post-fit ACS households with beta parameters from an AHS model that predicted the presence of a large area of deteriorated paint. Prior research shows this methodology can be used for small area estimation.

Analyses were conducted using SAS Version 9.1.4 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Household-level ACS and AHS microdata were used. Analyses were conducted in a Census-approved partner institution Federal Statistical Research Data Center. 

Exposure to residential lead dust will continue to be a public health problem until housing with deteriorated lead paint is remediated. Public health practitioners interested in strategically allocating healthy homes funding should consult this dataset and overlay predicted rates of deteriorated paint with important and unique local data to develop comprehensive targeting strategies.

Date of Coverage: 2009 - 2013