About
The LFC Toolkit is a resource to support communities of all sizes and varieties in lead hazard elimination. Marion County demonstrates practical applications of the strategies, tools, and resources outlined in the Toolkit.
Community Story
Renters and homebuyers should have the right to know about any potential lead hazards before agreeing to buy or rent a home, as this may affect their decision to select a property. While lead history information is publicly available for properties in Indianapolis, many residents do not know what kind of information to look for or where to find it. Without knowing what to ask or where to find all relevant information, many residents are left to rely on the word of landlords or sellers who may not know or may not be forthcoming about a property's potential lead hazards.
Empowering Residents with Information
The Lead-Free Indy team in Marion County, Indiana, is composed of representatives from the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD) and the Indiana University Indianapolis Center for Urban Health. They sought to inform and empower residents by creating a user-friendly tool that provides all publicly known information about a property's lead history as well as guidance on how to address any potential lead hazards. Their solution is LeadADVISOR, a free tool that employs artificial intelligence to answer questions about a specific property and lead hazards in general, using publicly available information. The team's goal is for the LeadADVISOR tool to both educate residents and encourage them to advocate for safer housing.
Using money from the State of Indiana's Health First Indiana program, the Lead-Free Indy team engaged Plow Digital, a partner that had created the MCPHD Mission Unleaded website, to design and build the LeadADVISOR tool. The tool allows people to search for the lead history of a specific property, provides a clear and easily understandable summary of the search results, and offers information about what to do about a property's potential lead hazards—all through an easy-to-use AI interface. All information provided is downloadable so the user can save it and access it later.
LeadADVISOR pulls information from carefully selected and vetted sites. The Lead-Free Indy and Plow Digital teams spent many hours training the AI to answer questions accurately and to summarize inspection report findings in easily understandable language. The tool will include a mapping feature in the future. While the tool only pulls information from housing data specific to Marion County, Indiana, anyone in the United States can use the tool to learn about lead hazards.
LeadADVISOR is housed on the Mission Unleaded website and is free and accessible to anyone who visits the website.
Designing a Tool to Fit Users' Needs
In the early stages of the tool's development, the Lead-Free Indy team was met with concerns from others about using AI to provide important health and technical information, as well as concerns that it would require sharing private information. These concerns were easily overcome when the team explained which publicly available sources of information would inform the tool and how the tool would be tested and monitored for accuracy.
Prior to its launch, the team took care to perform rigorous testing of the tool and invited other experts and community leaders to beta test the LeadADVISOR tool. The team used the early feedback to improve the tool's user interface and its ability to answer specific questions more directly.
The Lead-Free Indy team formally launched the tool in September 2024 at their Summit to Empower a Lead-Free Indy. This forum offered an opportunity to introduce the LeadADVISOR tool to members of the community, demonstrate the tool's functionality, and answer residents' questions about the tool and lead hazards more generally.
Learning from LeadADVISOR Users
The LeadADVISOR tool is designed to become increasingly more attuned to users' questions and information needs. The tool also allows the Lead-Free Indy team to see what kinds of information people are searching for and, more specifically, the types of questions people are asking. Monitoring these questions and information searches will not only help improve the tool over time, but it will inform the team's continued efforts to educate, support, and empower community members in choosing and advocating for safer homes.
Key steps taken:
- Provided access to many sources of information in a single place to reduce barriers in obtaining important information about a home's lead history.
- Provided clear, accurate information in an easily understandable way to empower residents to make informed housing decisions.
- Was transparent about data sources and incorporated input from experts and community members to help build trust in and support for the tools.