Confronting Environmental and Social Drivers of Lead Exposure in Urban Gardens through Community Centered Remediation

Urban Farm DB summary

Through an interdisciplinary literature review and interviews with stakeholders in the Boston, Massachusetts urban agriculture network — including The Food Project — this study examines the social and historical context of lead exposure in urban gardens in the Dudley neighborhood. It shows that products of structural racism, particularly redlining and disinvestment, created the social and physical environments that allow lead contamination to persist in low-income communities of color like Dudley. An alternate growing material or soil amendment was found to dilute lead concentrations, reduce lead bioaccessibility, and limit fine particle resuspension, and working with The Food Project, these findings shaped gardeners' behavior to reduce lead exposure. The findings on urban soil lead bioaccessibility are presented as contributing to a broader body of research that informs policy decisions such as benchmarks for safe soil or compost lead levels.