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Abstract:
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Reducing US children's blood lead levels is likely the major environmental public health achievement of the last three decades. Nonetheless, there are almost 400,000 US children with elevated lead exposure. However, because children with high blood lead are rarely found in national surveys and are considered statistical outliers, central tendency data are often inadequate to find them or to characterize their risk factors. Thus, alternative methods must be employed to direct efforts to locate and treat these children. Identifying these high risk children is moving from an analysis of statistical data to one investigating cultural practices, nutritional status, consumption of ethnic foods and remedies, and site-specific factors. Developing plausible analytical methodologies to incorporate these 'anecdotal' or 'social' data into lead targeting efforts is our current challenge.
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