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A city synonymous with the destructive effects of poverty could soon teach America a lesson in how to fight it.

The city is Flint, Michigan . You may remember the horrific circumstances that made it a focus of national attention: In late 2014, the city changed its drinking water source and failed to follow safety protocols. Water started corroding the citys lead pipes, exposing residents to toxic levels of a substance that can have particularly devastating effects on the developing brains of children.

The tragedy was entirely preventable, as my colleague Arthur Delaney documented at HuffPost and as journalist Anna Clark later detailed in an award-winning book . Right after the switch, many of Flints relatively poor, majority Black residents had complained about water with a foul taste and smell. The state officials in charge ignored them, until scientists provided overwhelming evidence of the contamination.

One of those scientists was Mona Hanna-Attisha , an acclaime Flint pediatrician who was caring for some of those children and is still doing so today. Although tests now show lower levels of lead in the citys water, she worries about all of the other hazards the kids in her clinic face, and in particular the hazards that come from growing up in deep poverty.

Hunger. Poor access to health care. Toxins from old, dilapidated housing. The list goes on and the effects linger, poisoning Flints children just as surely as lead in the water did. Research over the last two decades has linked these conditions to health problems later in life , and even to premature death.