Lead Knowledge Dissemination by GLASS:
Samples of Info Packs

By Elizabeth O'Brien, BSc, Grad Dip in Educational Studies (Health Educ’n), Manager, Global Lead Advice & Support Service (GLASS) run by The LEAD Group Inc. Australia

The Global Lead Advice & Support Service (GLASS) would be happy to update the information in any of our Info Packs and tailor it to any jurisdiction prepared to provide a grant for the purpose. There follows a sample of the types of Info Packs which we have put together over the past two decades, and which we regularly disseminate and update. In the old days, most items in the Info Packs were not online and were colour printed by government or companies, or photocopied in black on white by us, and posted. Today, Info Packs are entirely made up of online articles, and they are emailed. Once they are ripened by regular updating and disseminating, receiving feedback and revising, they are web-published.

GLASS usually creates an Info Pack in response to an identified need – a request or multiple requests for the same information, or they can be commissioned. For instance, if the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) contracted us to write an Info Pack on Substitutes for Lead in Paints and Inks for its Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead in Paint (GAELP), we would gladly do so.

I am currently working on an Info Pack on Substitutes for Lead Weights for Fishing, Diving, Wheel Balancing, Ballast, etc; and another Info Pack on Steps to Creating a Lead-Safe World. If what is already online on the subject is inadequate or incomplete, we research and write items for the Info Pack.

Our Info Pack on Lead Information for NSW Councils, is an example of an Info Pack commissioned by the NSW Government. All the information in it is online at https://lead.org.au/clp/clp.htm . For as little as $50,000 we could hire an environmental lawyer in any state or territory outside of NSW, to review, update and “jurisdictionalise” the very useful information in our "LEAD SAFETY TOOL KIT FOR COUNCILS" (https://lead.org.au/clp/toolkit.pdf ). As the WHO acknowledges (in the booklet at http://www.who.int/ceh/publications/childhoodpoisoning/en/index.html ), each dollar spent on lead poisoning prevention, returns a benefit to individuals and to society, worth between US$17 and $220 – depending on what the intervention is. Council or State or Territory money spent on lead testing, lead abatement or awareness-raising provides one of the best cost/benefit ratios of any money spent on government programs.

Knowledge dissemination is what GLASS is all about. We can literally turn lead management knowledge into gold benefits for individuals and for society: through higher IQ leading to higher lifetime earnings, healthier and longer life, reduced crime and reduced education and medical costs.