The Flint water crisis has resulted in a record number of children with special needs and poor school performance.
More than 12,000 children were exposed to toxic levels of lead in 2014 when the city switched its public water source to the Flint River, where the water is significantly more acidic.
This led to corrosion in lead pipes, which permeated the city’s tap water with lead, then introduced it into the drinking supply. Lead exposure has been linked to behavioral and cognitive problems, mental illness and an underdeveloped brain.
Now researchers from Michigan and New Jersey experts have reported that the number of young children diagnosed with special needs increased by eight percent after 2014, while performance in math classes fell.
The proportion with which children were classified as having special needs increased by eight percent from 2014
Flint children with elevated blood lead levels doubled from about 2.5 to 5 percent
The latest study used student education records from the state of Michigan, obtained from the Michigan Education Data Center, covering students from kindergarten through high school, looking at student outcomes from 2007 to 2019.
They compared Flint’s schools to similar ones in other parts of Michigan using something called synthetic control methods, which allowed them to create a ‘synthetic’ or control version of Flint that did not experience this water crisis.
Then analyzed data on metrics like math and reading test scores, special needs status, and attendance to see how they changed after the crisis in Flint compared to our synthetic Flint.
As of 2015, math achievement dropped significantly for children in grades three to eight, which is around the ages of nine to 13.
They found a “medium” effect size by educational intervention standards and lost the equivalent of five months of unrecovered learning progress in 2019.
Children from poorer families and those in grades 3 to 5 were hardest hit in mathematics
During that time, there has also been an increase of 1.2 percentage points or eight percent in the proportion of students with documented special educational needs.
Boys experienced a 10.9 percent increase in special needs, while girls experienced a four percent increase.
The research was conducted by sociologists at the University of Michigan and Princeton University
They wrote in the paper: ‘Social and psychological processes also have an important role to play in shaping the outcomes of individuals living in crisis-affected communities.
“For example, in assessing the long-term effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, a UN report concluded that the mental health effects of increased fear, anxiety and trauma actually exceeded the physical health effects of radiation exposure.”
Their findings were published in the journal The progress of science.
Mathematical performance dropped significantly. Statistical estimates suggest a significant 0.14 standard deviation (SD) decrease in math performance, which falls within the range of a ‘medium’ effect size
Flint’s water had been supplied by Lake Huron since the 1960s. In 2011, when Flint’s government went bankrupt, then-governor Rick Snyder appointed the first in a long line of government emergency managers tasked with balancing the city’s budget.
To save money — about $7 million — officials switched to water from the Flint River in 2014. Meanwhile, lead-filled pipes hadn’t been replaced, causing the metal to seep into the tap water. Shortly after the switch, residents began noticing a new color and smell in their tap water.
It wasn’t until early 2015 that the EPA learned of the concerns about lead levels. Even after the switch to Detroit’s water supply that year, the water in Flint remained unsafe, and residents are still drinking contaminated water.
Reading performance remained roughly the same, possibly because previous research has shown that a student’s math performance is more likely to improve or deteriorate over a short period of time, while reading is a lifelong learning process.
A research team led by pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha found that the percentage of Flint children with elevated blood lead levels doubled between 2014 and 2016, from about 2.5 to five percent.
Despite the higher lead exposure experienced by children living in homes with lead pipes during the Flint Water Crisis (FWC), there was little difference in their academic performance compared to those living in homes with safer copper pipes.
It suggests that the wider effects of the crisis, such as the great social upheaval and the overall sense of crisis, in addition to direct lead poisoning, had a greater impact on educational outcomes.
Last year, an EPA report found that there are more than 9 million lead service lines in the US known to be a ‘significant source’ of lead contamination – used to carry drinking water to homes across the country.
In 2021, a US federal judge has approved a $626 million payout to Flint residents whose water supply was poisoned by lead.
Most of the money – $600 million – comes from the state of Michigan, which was accused of repeatedly overlooking the risks of using the Flint River without properly treating the water.
Lead is toxic to the brain, and even a small amount of exposure can cause cognitive impairment. it is distributed throughout the body via the bloodstream and accumulates in various tissues.
Children are at particularly high risk of negative health effects because when lead is ingested, a greater proportion is absorbed into the bloodstream from the gastrointestinal tract in children than in adults.
Although children and adults are exposed to the same amount of lead, children are more likely to absorb a greater amount into their bodies.
Lead exposure has also contributed to higher rates of anxiety and depression, lower test scoresimpulsivity and ADHD diagnoses and violence or aggression.