Members of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) defined the scope of this update, in cooperation with the Agency for Healthcare Research and quality (AHRQ) and the Oregon Evidence Based Practice Center (EPC) personnel. The Task Force's goals for this update were to address the gaps in the literature revealed in the 1996 USPSTF recommendations. These gaps related to the accuracy of risk assessment questionnaires in children with varying blood lead levels, the population prevalence at which to change from targeted screening to universal screening, the effectiveness of interventions to lower lead levels, and cost-effectiveness analyses of lead screening programs.