{"id":44726,"date":"2025-08-01T01:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T05:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/?page_id=44726"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T21:03:03","slug":"lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead Screening in Children (LSC-E)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"TextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\">The percentage of <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\">persons<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\"> 2 years of age who had one or more <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\">capillary<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\"> or venous lead blood <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun ContextualSpellingAndGrammarErrorV2Themed SCXW250376537 BCX4\">test<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW250376537 BCX4\"> for lead poisoning by their second birthday.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP SCXW250376537 BCX4\" data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Why It Matters<\/h2>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends testing blood for lead exposure. Medicaid requires that enrolled children get tested for lead at ages 12 and 24 months <sup><a href=\"#ref-4\">4<\/a><\/sup>. For children not enrolled in Medicaid, the CDC recommends focusing on testing high-risk children based on potential lead exposure <sup><a href=\"#ref-4\">4<\/a><\/sup>. Health care providers may use a capillary or venous sample for initial blood lead level screening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Exposure to lead can cause damage to the brain and other vital organs, as well as intellectual and behavioral deficits <sup><a href=\"#ref-1\">1<\/a><\/sup>. Because children who are exposed to lead often have no obvious symptoms, lead poisoning often goes unrecognized <sup><a href=\"#ref-1\">1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Screening for lead is an easy way to detect an abnormal blood lead level in children. There is no safe blood lead level <sup><a href=\"#ref-2\">2<\/a><\/sup>. If not found early, exposure to lead and high blood lead levels can lead to irrevocable effects on a child\u2019s physical and mental health <sup><a href=\"#ref-3\">3<\/a><\/sup>. Lead poisoning in childhood primarily affects the central nervous system, the kidneys and the blood-forming organs. Adverse effects in young children have been noted at levels as low as 10 \u00b5g\/dL and include impairments in cognitive function and initiation of various behavioral disorders <sup><a href=\"#ref-2\">2<\/a><\/sup>. Recent studies have noted effects of lead on cognitive ability at levels even below the level of concern of 10 \u00b5g\/dL.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-teams=\"true\">Historical Results \u2013 National Averages<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Performance results for this measure are currently unavailable.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The percentage of persons 2 years of age who had one or more capillary or venous lead blood test for lead poisoning by their second birthday.\u00a0 Why It Matters The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends testing blood for lead exposure. Medicaid requires that enrolled children get tested for lead at ages 12 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"parent":733,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-44726","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lead Screening in Children (LSC-E) - NCQA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The percentage of persons 2 years of age who had one or more capillary or venous lead blood test for lead poisoning by their second birthday.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lead Screening in Children (LSC-E) - NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The percentage of persons 2 years of age who had one or more capillary or venous lead blood test for lead poisoning by their second birthday.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NCQA.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-19T21:03:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/NCQA_cmyk_tag.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@NCQA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/\",\"name\":\"Lead Screening in Children (LSC-E) - NCQA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-01T05:00:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-19T21:03:03+00:00\",\"description\":\"The percentage of persons 2 years of age who had one or more capillary or venous lead blood test for lead poisoning by their second birthday.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/lead-screening-in-children-lsc-e\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Report Cards\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Health Plans\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"State of Health Care Quality Report\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/report-cards\/health-plans\/state-of-health-care-quality-report\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":5,\"name\":\"Lead Screening in Children (LSC-E)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\",\"name\":\"NCQA\",\"description\":\"Measuring quality. 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