PEDIATRICS Vol. 77 No. 6 June 1986, pp. 826-833
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Correlates of Low-Level Lead Exposure in Urban Children at 2 Years of Age

David Bellinger PhD1, Alan Leviton MD1, Michael Rabinowitz PhD1, Herbert Needleman MD1, and Christine Waternaux PhD1

1 From the Department of Neurology, Mental Retardation Research Center, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, McLean Hospital, Boston, and the Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh

The blood lead levels of a large number of US preschool children approach the value regarded as the upper limit of normal. To reduce the number of children whose levels increase into the range thought to be toxic, the antecedents and correlates of levels in the 0- to 25-µg/dL range must be identified. In a large longitudinal study of middle and upper-middle class children living in metropolitan Boston, we evaluated how well five sets of variables predicted children's blood lead levels at 2 years of age: environmental lead sources, mouthing activity, home environment/care giving, prior developmental status, and sociodemographic characteristics. A series of bivariate and multivariate analyses indicated that only environmental lead sources and, to a lesser extent, mouthing activity accounted for significant protions of the variance in blood lead levels. Environmental lead sources were not significantly related to the home environment/care-giving variables or to sociodemographic characteristics. The most promising approach for achieving community-wide reductions in children's blood lead levels is reduction in the amount of lead in the proximate environment.

Key Words: lead exposure • child development • hand-to-mouth activity • home environment

Submitted on July 8, 1985




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