For decades, children's potential exposure to old paint was spotlighted as the main health hazard involving lead. Today, workers are more often highly exposed to lead than the general population, according to a University of Washington faculty member and Ph.D. candidate focused on occupational and environmental health.

Washington state's standards that regulate occupational exposure are "severely outdated, based on information available in the 1970s instead of the latest scientific and medical evidence," write Steven Gilbert and Rachel Shaffer in a Seattle Times opinion piece. Gilbert is a UW affiliate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, and Shaffer is pursuing a doctorate in environmental toxicology, at the UW School of Public Health.