Lead Poisoning: An Alarming Public Health Problem in Bangladesh

Amal K. Mitra, Akhlaque Haque, Manirul Islam and S. A. M. K. Bashar
Additional contact information
Amal K. Mitra: Department of Community Health Sciences, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA
Akhlaque Haque: Department of Government, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Manirul Islam: North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
S. A. M. K. Bashar: North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

IJERPH, 2009, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: To assess the risk of lead poisoning among preschool and school-aged children in Bangladesh, 345 children were screened for blood lead levels (BLLs) from one rural and two urban areas in Bangladesh from September 2007 through January 2008. An urban industrial area at Tongi was identified as a disaster area, where 99% (104/105) of those tested had BLLs ?10 µg/dL. Industrial emissions and use of leaded gasoline by two-stroke engine vehicles were identified as possible sources of lead in that area. A rural nonindustrial area at Chirirbandar, Dinajpur was identified as another high-risk area, where 14% of the children screened had BLLs ?10 µg/dL. BLLs at the urban industrial area were significantly higher than those at the rural and urban nonindustrial areas (24.58 ± 10.32, 7.24 ± 6.31, and 2.47 ± 3.32 µg/dL, respectively; p

Keywords: Lead poisoning; children; Bangladesh; GIS; universal screening (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/1/84/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/1/84/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:6:y:2009:i:1:p:84-95:d:3793

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().