In The United States Of America

In the United States of America, the issue of lead poisoning among the children population is of great concern to the American community. D. Bellinger believes that “no level of lead exposure appears to be ‘safe’ and even the current ‘low’ levels of exposure in children are associated with neurodevelopmental deficits” (Bellinger, 2008).The current paper aims to analyze an article, “Increased Incidence and Altered Risk Demographics of Childhood Lead Poisoning: Predicting the Impacts of the CDC’s 5 μg/dL Reference Value in Massachusetts (USA)”, written by Phoebe Handler and Daniel Brabander and published in the “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health”. The studies presented in the article demonstrate that children population of the USA faces a much greater threat for lead poisoning in view of the new reference value for lead poisoning established by the CDC. The paper focuses on the children population of Massachussets at risk for lead poisoning, aiming to estimate the change in population of the current age group based on the demographic pointers of MA communities.

The article draws attention to the consequences of benchmark reduction for lead poisoning risks by the Centers for Disease Control in 2002. As stated in the article, the change in the U.S. lead poisoning reference value from 10 µg/dL to 5 µg/dL will lead to the increase in the percentage for the children population at risk of lead poisoning. The authors present the aims of the article based on the material used as a basis for the analysis, as well as provide their predictions of the changes in the demographic characteristics pertaining to lead poisoning risk. They estimate that there is a great impact to be expected on the work of numerous public health departments and organizations, as well as on the way the risks of childhood lead poisoning will be approached in view of the CDC’s newly established value reference.

The article proves the importance and the emergency of the issue pertaining to childhood lead poisoning risks through extensive data research and analysis. However, it does not take into account the primary sources of lead poisoning in the communities under analysis. As an example, recent studies show that any, if not most, urban children with high blood lead levels have multiple sources of lead exposure, including drinking water (Renner, 2010). Compared to a recent study of lead poisoning risks in India, in which the practice of using leaded gasoline is stated to be one of the governing factors for analysing the situation (Ahamed, Verma, Kumar & Siddiqui, 2005), the current article fails to provide information of such kind. That said, the article ventures to outline the necessary steps to be taken in view of the demographic situation for lead poisoning, suggesting that the research conducted in the article be used as a model to efficiently identify the lead poisoning situation in the US communities.

From the detailed statistics data supported by figures and correlation analysis in the results and discussion section of the article, it is clear that the authors conducted a thorough research based on the MA community profiles. All primary demographic risk factors for lead poisoning risk, including such as median home income, poverty rate, educational attainment, homeownership rate, and race/ethnicity were taken into account, contributing to the theoretical value of the article and the completion of the article’s main aims.

Bibliography

Ahamed, M., Verma, S., Kumar, A., & Siddiqui, M. (2005). Environmental exposure to lead and its correlation with biochemical indices in children. Science Of The Total Environment, 346(1-3), 48-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2004.12.019

Bellinger, D. (2008). Very low lead exposures and children’s neurodevelopment. Current Opinion In Pediatrics, 20(2), 172-177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/mop.0b013e3282f4f97b

Handler, P., & Brabander, D. (2012). Increased Incidence and Altered Risk Demographics of Childhood Lead Poisoning: Predicting the Impacts of the CDC’s 5 µg/dL Reference Value in Massachusetts (USA). International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health, 9(12), 3934-3942. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph9113934

Renner, R. (2010). Exposure on Tap: Drinking Water as an Overlooked Source of Lead. Environmental Health Perspectives, 118(2), a68-a72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.118-a68