Lead poisoning levels are down, but the risk to children is still out there.

That’s the message being promoted during National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, which ended Saturday.

Through sustained state prevention efforts and public awareness campaigns, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported a 93 percent decrease in the rates of children with lead poisoning since 1997. The numbers of Illinois children younger than 6 years old with elevated levels of lead in their blood was 45,809 in 1997. In 2011, that number dropped to 3,164.