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Is hand-to-mouth contact the main pathway of children’s soil and dust intake?

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Abstract

Children (n = 240) between the ages of 2 and 17 years were randomly selected from three cities in China. The total amount of soil and dust (SD) on their hands was measured and ranged from 3.50–187.39 mg (median = 19.49 mg). We screened for seven elements (Ce, V, Y, Al, Ba, Sc, and Mn), and Ce levels were used to calculate hand SD by variability and soil elements. The main factors affecting SD amount were location and age group, as identified using a conditional inference tree. Hand SD and the hand SD intake rate were highest in Gansu Province, followed by Guangdong and Hubei provinces, respectively. Hand SD and the hand SD intake rate were highest among children in primary school, followed by kindergarten and secondary school, respectively. The hand SD intake rate of the three typical areas was 11.9 mg/d, which was about 26.6% of the children’s soil intake rate (44.8 mg/d), indicating that hand-to-mouth contact is not the main route for children’s soil intake in the three areas of China.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFC1804601). The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to all of those who put considerable time and effort into the sampling, sample processing, and sample analysis stages.

Funding

National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFC1804601).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Yiwei Gong, Yihang Wu & Jin Ma

  2. State Key Laboratory of Water Environmental Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Chunye Lin, Xitao Liu & Hongguang Cheng

  3. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Environmental Health, Beijing, 100021, China

    Dongqun Xu & Qin Wang

  4. School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China

    Xiaoli Duan & Beibei Wang

Authors
  1. Yiwei Gong
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  2. Yihang Wu
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  3. Chunye Lin
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  4. Dongqun Xu
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  5. Xiaoli Duan
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  6. Beibei Wang
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  7. Xitao Liu
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  8. Hongguang Cheng
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  9. Qin Wang
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  10. Jin Ma
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Contributions

YG: Data curation, Writing original draft, Formal analysis. YW: Investigation, Writing original draft. CL, DX, XD, BW, XL and HC: Investigation. QW: Project administration. JM: Funding acquisition, Project administration.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jin Ma.

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The ethical review was obtained from the ethical review committee of institute for environmental health and related product safety, Chinese center for disease control and prevention. It is recognized that the right and the welfare of the subject are adequately protected.

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Gong, Y., Wu, Y., Lin, C. et al. Is hand-to-mouth contact the main pathway of children’s soil and dust intake?. Environ Geochem Health 44, 1567–1580 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00830-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00830-4

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