Technical Correction to the “Approach

for Estimating Exposures and

Incremental Health Effects from Lead

due to Renovation, Repair, and

Painting Activities in Public and

Commercial Buildings”

  

   October 21, 2014

  

EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20460

   Assistance and support provided by ICF International under Contract number EP‐C‐14‐001

  
Technical Correction to the “Approach for Estimating Exposures and Incremental Health Effects from Lead due to

Renovation, Repair, and Painting Activities in Public and Commercial Buildings”

Technical Correction                                                                                         1      

                                 October 21, 2014

Technical Correction for Classification of Time Spent in P&CBs

for 5‐Year‐Olds

EPA has identified an error in the classification of the amount of time children (specifically 5‐year‐olds)

spend in Public and Commercial Buildings (P&CBs). This error is estimated to have a small impact on the

overall magnitude and distribution of results presented for the interior analysis in the Approach.   

Because Child‐Occupied Facilities (COFs) as defined in 40 CFR 745.83, which specifies patterns of time

spent by children under age 6, are already regulated by the 2008 Renovation, Repair, and Painting (RRP)

rule, the current analysis excludes consideration of COFs.  Therefore, while the analysis considers

exposures under a variety of patterns of time spent in P&CBs, it excludes those patterns where the time

spent would result in classification of a facility as a COF. EPA correctly capped the time‐spent‐in‐P&CBs

values so that COF‐level exposures would be excluded for 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4‐year‐olds but failed to cap

these time‐spent values for 5‐year‐olds, resulting in some exposures being incorrectly included even

though they were reflective of scenarios which are already regulated. More information on how EPA

estimated time spent can be found in Appendix L of the Approach.

EPA conducted a sensitivity analysis with corrected time spent values (i.e., time spent correctly capped

for children aged 5 years old) for five scenarios and compared the results for those scenarios with the

uncorrected results presented in the Approach.  Because time spent is linked to building type, the effect

of this error varies by building type.  One scenario was selected for each building type and 10,000

iterations were modeled.  A total of ten model outputs were compared (1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, and

50 months post‐renovation and lifetime average) for each of the five test scenarios.   

Below are a series of charts that show the difference in the time spent fractions in the Approach and

those that EPA plans to use for children under 6 in the future.   
Technical Correction to the “Approach for Estimating Exposures and Incremental Health Effects from Lead due to

Renovation, Repair, and Painting Activities in Public and Commercial Buildings”

Technical Correction                                                                                         2      

                                 October 21, 2014

Table 1a: Fraction of the Week under 5 year olds, presented in Approach in Table L‐7

PnCB

Category

Fraction of the week Under 5 years old, Percentiles

5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th 99th

1i 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.12

2i 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.1 0.12 0.12 0.12

3i 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.12 0.12

4i 0.01 0.04 0.11 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12

5i 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.12 0.12

Table 1b: Fraction of the Week under 6 year olds, corrected table

PnCB

Category

Fraction of the week Under 6 years old, Percentiles

5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th 99th

1i 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.12

2i 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.10 0.12 0.12 0.12

3i 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.12 0.12

4i 0.03 0.08 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12

5i 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.07 0.12 0.12 0.12

Table 2a: Fraction of the Week 5‐17 year olds, presented in Approach in Table L‐7

PnCB

Category

Fraction of the week 5‐17 years old, Percentiles

5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th 99th

1i 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.08 0.18 0.35 0.42

2i 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.08 0.13 0.19 0.23 0.34

3i 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.09 0.16 0.21 0.32

4i 0.08 0.13 0.21 0.27 0.3 0.33 0.38 0.43

5i 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.21 0.36 0.42 0.56

  

Table 2b: Fraction of the Week 6‐17 year olds, corrected table

PnCB

Category

Fraction of the week 6‐17 years old, Percentiles

5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th 99th

1i 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.09 0.22 0.35 0.42

2i 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.08 0.14 0.19 0.24 0.35

3i 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.10 0.16 0.22 0.32

4i 0.07 0.13 0.22 0.27 0.30 0.33 0.36 0.43

5i 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.27 0.36 0.42 0.56

  
Technical Correction to the “Approach for Estimating Exposures and Incremental Health Effects from Lead due to

Renovation, Repair, and Painting Activities in Public and Commercial Buildings”

Technical Correction                                                                                         3      

                                 October 21, 2014

Of the eighty unique time spent estimates, eighteen of them changed.  When a change did occur, it was

small. The absolute difference for time‐spent values that changed is shown in the table below.  

Table 3: Comparison of updated time spent values

Fraction of Week (old) Fraction of Week (new) Difference

0.01 0.03 0.02

0.04 0.08 0.04

0.02 0.03 0.01

0.11 0.12 0.01

0.07 0.08 0.01

0.08 0.07  ‐0.01

0.01 0.02 0.01

0.21 0.22 0.01

0.06 0.07 0.01

0.08 0.09 0.01

0.13 0.14 0.01

0.09 0.10 0.01

0.21 0.27 0.06

0.18 0.22 0.04

0.23 0.24 0.01

0.21 0.22 0.01

0.38 0.36  ‐0.02

0.34 0.35 0.01

  

Any difference in results is driven by three factors.  The first is that time spent for 5‐year‐olds is now

capped at 0.12 of the week along with other younger children.  The second is that, while the values for

the fraction‐of‐the‐week distribution for children under 6 increase for some percentiles (but never

decrease) due to the inclusion of 5‐year‐olds in this group, the values for the fraction‐of‐the‐week

distribution for children 6 to 17 can either increase or decrease due to the removal of the 5‐year‐olds

from this group. The third factor affecting the results is the natural model variation. The model

resolution, for 10,000 iterations, is approximately 0.10 IQ points, so fluctuations in results at this

magnitude are to be expected even when there is no difference due to the correction of the error.  

Results indicate that the overall magnitude and distribution of the corrected results for the renovation‐

related IQ change of children 0‐10 were very similar to the uncorrected results presented in the

Approach.  The difference in mean IQ change due to this correction was very small (an average decrease

of <0.01 points at the mean and ranging from a 0.03 point decrease to a 0.13 point increase in

renovation‐related IQ change), and the difference in 95th percentile IQ change was also very small (a

decrease of 0.01 points at the mean and ranging from a 0.20 point decrease to a 0.13 point increase in

renovation‐related IQ change). These differences in the results are very close to the model resolution

limit.

EPA will correct this error in any future versions of the Approach and in any estimation of results.