Package for Racial Disparities in Exposure to Lead from School Drinking Water

This work investigates school children's exposure to lead in school water through test taken at school from 2016 to 2022. Racial disparities in exposure to hazards like lead can compound existing inequities. Such disparities may arise in US schools, since many schools have high concentrations of particular racial groups, We construct a novel nationwide data set of US school water testing data for 7,302 public schools from 2016-22. We show that exceedances of the regulatory ``action levels'' of 15 and 20 ppb are common; 1 in 5 schools nationally have at least one test above the 15 ppb action level.