A partnership between Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia, Vital Strategies, the Ministry of Health, and the National Research and Innovation Agency to strengthen the national healthcare system to better prevent, identify, and treat lead exposure.
Strengthening Indonesia’s Health System to Protect Children from Lead Exposure
Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia and Vital Strategies are partnering with the Ministry of Health and the National Research and Innovation Agency to improve Indonesia’s health system to better identify, monitor, treat, and reduce childhood lead exposure to help children realize their full potential.
Protecting children from exposure to lead is important to lifelong good health. There is no safe blood lead level in children. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect learning, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. To prevent further exposure and reduce damage to their child’s health. The most important step that parents and caregivers, healthcare providers, and public health professionals can take is to prevent lead exposure before it occurs.
Project Objectives
Objective One
Build capacity in Indonesia to monitor exposure of children to lead.
Objective Two
Improve environmental health data collection in selected countries by establishing a national system of monitoring exposure of children to lead.
Objective Three
Increase knowledge about sources and pathways of exposure of children to lead.
Objective Four
Strengthen the ability of healthcare professionals to early identify, treat, and prevent lead poisoning, and educate communities and children about lead poisoning and ways to avoid/mitigate risks.
Project Updates
2023
In 2023, Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia organized the national launch of the program, solidifying collaboration with the Ministry of Health by signing a partnership – witnessed by representatives from multiple government bodies, WHO, UNICEF, and other key stakeholders. In collaboration with its strategic partner, Vital Strategies, Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia developed questionnaires to assess national laboratory capacity and the results will be used as reference for inventory and capacity improvement to monitor lead exposure, especially in children.
Learn more in this overview of the project’s advancements during its first year in Indonesia.
2024
The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia, and Vital Strategies held a multi-stakeholders meeting in April 2024. One of the meeting’s results was the formation of the Blood Lead Surveillance (BLS) Working Group. With technical support from Vital Strategies, to date, a series of meetings have been held with the BLS Working Group to prepare the first phase of BLS piloting.
Along the way, cross-sectoral involvement in the working group continues to develop and now includes cross-programs at the Ministry of Health, including the Directorate of Environmental Health, the Directorate of Public Health Governance and Health Promotion, as well as the BPS-Statistics Indonesia and the Research Center for Public Health and Nutrition (PRKesmaszi) of National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). The latter joined as the Principal Investigator for the first phase of BLS piloting.
In December 2024, the Ministry of Health of Indonesia, in collaboration with Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia, Vital Strategies, and the Research Center for Public Health and Nutrition (PRKesmaszi) of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), officially kicked off the first phase of BLS piloting in Indonesia which will take place throughout 2025 in twelve selected districts/cities across six provinces: East Java, Central Java, South Sumatra, Lampung, Bali, and West Nusa Tenggara, as well as a pre-survey location in Tangerang Regency.
Learn more in this overview of the project’s advancements in Indonesia.
Implementing Partners
Partners include the Ministry of Health, the National Research and Innovation Agency, Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia, and Vital Strategies.
Project duration:
January 2023 – December 2027
Funding provided by:
Resources
The Toxic Truth Report ↗
Pure Earth and UNICEF, 2020
Lead Fact Sheet↗
Pure Earth
Videos
Indonesia Kicks Off the First Phase of Blood Lead Surveillance Piloting
Indonesia: Progress on Strengthening Health Systems to Reduce Lead Exposure in Indonesia 2024
Pure Earth Indonesia: Strengthening Health Systems to Reduce Lead Exposure 2023 Annual Report
A Global Initiative
Today, 1 in 3 children have enough lead in their blood to cause permanent brain damage. This project is part of a broader initiative by Pure Earth to strengthen expertise in national healthcare systems to prevent, identify, and treat lead exposure in 5 countries. An estimated 292 million of these lead-poisoned children live in Colombia, India (Maharashtra), Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and Peru. This 5-year project will help these 5 countries to overcome key technical and clinical hurdles to effectively identify, treat, and prevent childhood lead exposures, and to implement effective national action to monitor and reduce lead exposure risks.
Learn more about each project in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, and Maharashtra, India.
