Dr. Imana, instrumental in getting lead pilot study off the ground

Dr. Imana, The Man Behind The Pilot Lead Poisoning Study in Miami, Team of Graduate Student Volunteers including Janisse Rosario, The 1st Director of FCEHA

Pictured from Left to Right: Mary Kempf, Dr Imana
and Dr. Janvier Gasana, at Mary Kempf
and Dr. Imana Graduation

Dr. Gasana’s graduate research work made him aware of Chicago’s serious lead poisoning problem, and when he moved to Miami after he had accepted the offer of an assistant professor in the then FIU Graduate Department of Public Health, he asked officials at the Miami-Dade County Health Department about the situation of childhood lead poisoning. First, they said they did not have that problem because the US Government allegedly took care of the problem in the 1970s.

He was later allowed to look at their data when he insisted to do so. What he found disturbed him: Liberty City, Little Haiti and eastern Little Havana accounted for a disproportionately high amount of the county’s reported lead poisoning cases. From that time, he was consumed by the idea of pilot lead poisoning study in downtown Miami. Almost by serendipity, in Fall 1999, his graduate assistant (Dr. Mohamed Imana) approached him and told him that he applied for and obtained the FIU College of Health Sciences’ Florence Bayuk Foundation Scholarship of $15,000.00 with a condition of having a research project for which the money had to be used. Gasana was able to obtain the rest of the funds (about $60,000.00) from the Dean’s Office and the Stempel Foundation. He then assembled a team of 11 graduate students who visited 121 sites in those targeted areas. Dr. Imana (in the picture standing between Dr. Gasana and Mary Kempff, one of the graduate student volunteers*) became the Project Director of the Lead Poisoning Pilot Study in Miami whose full time salary was paid through the scholarship. He was responsible for coordinating the day-to-day activities of the Project and the volunteer students under Dr. Gasana’s direction as PI. He oversaw all project activities which included administering the survey questionnaire, the biological and environmental sampling of lead, referral to medical treatment, data management, program evaluation and reporting. When he graduated and went on to become the medical epidemiologist for the Bahamas, Amanda Coltes replaced him as the Director of the Project.

* The student volunteers were Shameeka Akins, Synthia Snow, John Hill, Bill Brookman, Marcus Pereira, Kimberly Reid, Allyson Jones, Karen Pierre, Pie Kamoso, Debra Miller, and Janisse Rosario (in the right hand picture assisting Dr. Gasana to collect lead-based paint samples) who later became the Director of the Florida Children’s Environmental Health Alliance (FCEHA), formerly known as the Florida Alliance to Eradicate Childhood Lead Poisoning (FAECLP) for 3 years. They were all of them working on their master’s research projects using the data collected in this study. Each one of these graduate students was in charge of one zipcode downtown Miami, administered the survey questionnaire, as well as helped the child to get to the clinic where the veinous blood was to be drawn for lead analysis; assisted the PI, the Project Director and the Project Coordinator in the evaluation of the entire project. They worked closely with the selected families, the personnel at the Liberty City Health Services Center and environmental specialists to follow-up missed appointments, assisted with environmental inspections, conduct door-to-door outreach activities, encourage basic prevention activities such as good handwashing techniques, control of lead house dust, and nutrition.

Dr. Janvier Gasana and Janisse Rosario in the field collecting lead paint samples.