Michigan doctor who revealed Flint water crisis now takes on child poverty

Mona Hanna-Attisha launched a program to provide funds during a newborn’s first year – and wants to replicate it across the country

• Flint residents grapple with water crisis a decade later: ‘If we had the energy left, we’d cry’

In 2015, Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha alerted the world that children were being poisoned by lead in the water of her home town of Flint, Michigan. Now, as Flint marks the 10-year anniversary of the crisis, she’s set her sights on another target: the underlying poverty that she says allowed it to all happen.

“For a long time, I have literally wished for the ability to prescribe an antidote to poverty,” Hanna-Attisha said. Study after study has shown poverty-related stress and lack of resources can damage everything from babies’ physical health to children’s abilities to learn and later thrive in careers. In Flint, which has a majority Black population, an astounding 47.6% of children live in poverty, according to a 2022 analysis of census data.

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