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Trend of childhood blood lead levels in cities of China in recent 10 years

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Abstract

The adverse effects of lead on human especially childhood have been well established. Largely due to the phase out of lead in gasoline, blood lead levels (BLLs) had declined substantially all over the world including China. In 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013, we conducted a continuous project including 47,346 children aged 0–6 years old from 11 cities all over China to show how the decline happened and to explore what to do next to improve the BLLs of children of China. Our data shown the BLLs of Chinese children decreased from 46.38, 43.58, 38.95 to 37.17 μg/L, but the decline was not enough. These decline was mainly because of the number decrease of children with high BLLs. Integrated strategy should be used to promote the BLLs of Chinese children, like striving to improve the environment, setting new cutoff for high BLLs, and establishing routine blood lead screening.

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Abbreviations

BLLs:

Blood lead levels

CDC:

Centers for disease control and prevention

CI:

Confidence interval

EBLLs:

Elevated blood lead levels

GM:

Geometric mean

VS:

Versus

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Beijing Bohui Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.

Contributors

T. L. wrote the first draft of this paper. All authors contributed to the intellectual content and approved the final version. Y. D. is the guarantor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, 100020, China

    Tao Li, Shuaiming Zhang, Zangwen Tan & Yaohua Dai

Authors
  1. Tao Li
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  2. Shuaiming Zhang
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  3. Zangwen Tan
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  4. Yaohua Dai
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yaohua Dai.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Role of the funding sources

The funding agencies have no role in study design, implementation, data analysis, and interpretation.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the ethics committee of the Capital Institute of Pediatrics.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Capsule abstract

Many studies shown BLLs of Chinese children decreased. Our study declared it was mainly because of the number decrease of children with high BLLs. Integrated strategy is needed.

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Li, T., Zhang, S., Tan, Z. et al. Trend of childhood blood lead levels in cities of China in recent 10 years. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 5824–5830 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-8335-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-8335-0

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