Investigation and Evaluation of Children’s Blood Lead Levels around a Lead Battery Factory and Influencing Factors

Feng Zhang, Yang Liu, Hengdong Zhang, Yonghong Ban, Jianfeng Wang, Jian Liu, Lixing Zhong, Xianwen Chen and Baoli Zhu
Additional contact information
Feng Zhang: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Yang Liu: Jiangyin Municipal Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Wuxi 214434, China
Hengdong Zhang: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Yonghong Ban: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Jianfeng Wang: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Jian Liu: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Lixing Zhong: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China
Xianwen Chen: Jiangyin Municipal Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Wuxi 214434, China
Baoli Zhu: Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Nanjing 210009, China

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Lead pollution incidents have occurred frequently in mainland China, which has caused many lead poisoning incidents. This paper took a battery recycling factory as the subject, and focused on measuring the blood lead levels of environmental samples and all the children living around the factory, and analyzed the relationship between them. We collected blood samples from the surrounding residential area, as well as soil, water, vegetables. The atomic absorption method was applied to measure the lead content in these samples. The basic information of the generation procedure, operation type, habit and personal protect equipment was collected by an occupational hygiene investigation. Blood lead levels in 43.12% of the subjects exceeded 100 ?g/L. The 50th and the 95th percentiles were 89 ?g/L and 232 ?g/L for blood lead levels in children, respectively, and the geometric mean was 94 ?g/L. Children were stratified into groups by age, gender, parents’ occupation, distance and direction from the recycling plant. The difference of blood lead levels between groups was significant ( p < 0.05). Four risk factors for elevated blood lead levels were found by logistic regression analysis, including younger age, male, shorter distance from the recycling plant, and parents with at least one working in the recycling plant. The rate of excess lead concentration in water was 6.25%, 6.06% in soil and 44.44% in leaf vegetables, which were all higher than the Chinese environment standards. The shorter the distance to the factory, the higher the value of BLL and lead levels in vegetable and environment samples. The lead level in the environmental samples was higher downwind of the recycling plant.

Keywords: children; blood lead level; lead battery recycling plan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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