Environmental Hazards in The ECE Setting

In the broadest sense, the environment is anything outside of a person. The effect of the environment on children’s health is a concern shared by parents, ECE program workers, and public health professionals. Within the entire ECE program setting, many hazards might be present and easy to identify. Hazards include cleaning supplies, play structures, medications for children, art supplies, and many other useful and necessary items. Other environmental hazards might not be easily identified and can come from sources such as drinking water, soil, and the air. This guidance manual provides tools and resources to identify sources of environmental contamination that might harm the health of children and their caretakers because of where their ECE program is located. To ensure children are safe from injury or illness while in an ECE setting, states have program licensing regulations to protect the health and safety of children. Individual programs might also have internal policies or follow best practice guidance beyond what is regulated by their state.⁵ These practices are critical to keeping children safe, but they are often not focused on environmental exposures that can occur because of where the ECE program is located.

Poor siting decisions can result in children being exposed to indoor or outdoor chemical contaminants in soil, water, and air. These chemical contaminants can come from sources on the ECE program property or nearby sites. It is important to protect children from a wide variety of environmental contaminants, including lead, arsenic, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mercury, and radon.

If an environmental problem is discovered at an ECE program, it can create stress, worry, and fear among parents. Depending on the contaminant, duration, and level of the exposure, the hazard can harm children and staff. Such exposures can cost ECE program providers and states money in legal fees, liability, and expenses to remedy the problem.

Poor siting decisions can result in children being exposed to indoor or outdoor chemical contaminants in soil, water, and air. These chemical contaminants can come from sources on the ECE program property or nearby sites. It is important to protect children from a wide variety of environmental contaminants, including lead, arsenic, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mercury, and radon.

If an environmental problem is discovered at an ECE program, it can create stress, worry, and fear among parents. Depending on the contaminant, duration, and level of the exposure, the hazard can harm children and staff. Such exposures can cost ECE program providers and states money in legal fees, liability, and expenses to remedy the problem.

Environmental hazard assessments can help prevent children from being exposed to environmental contaminants. For example, an environmental assessment may reveal that a proposed ECE site is in the same building as a dry cleaner and that the chemicals from the dry cleaner could affect the air quality in the ECE program. An assessment of business uses near the ECE site could prevent this type of exposure. Similarly, if an ECE program opens on a former industrial property that was not properly cleaned up, chemical contaminants from the former industry could be in the soil. Children could be exposed to chemical contaminants in the soil while playing. An assessment of the past use of the property could prevent this type of exposure.

In some communities that face a heavy burden of environmental exposures, the need to keep ECE programs on safe sites is especially critical. Children in communities with a heavy burden of environmental exposures might face environmental exposures from old housing materials, unaddressed abandoned or hazardous sites, industrial facilities, and other undiscovered environmental hazards. Environmental exposures at ECE programs only add to their burden of exposure. Many conditions in a community are extremely challenging to change, but helping to ensure ECE programs are as safe as possible requires few additional resources. Protecting children in these communities helps protect some of the most vulnerable children in our nation.

⁵Head Start programs have federally mandated practices that might go beyond the state in which a program is located.