Overview
Chagonda and colleagues measured blood lead levels in 86 children under six years old living in Mbare, a high-density Harare suburb with old housing, possible lead-based paint, aged water infrastructure, and nearby industrial activity. The study also measured lead in soil, tap and borehole drinking water, paint chips, and puddle water; it is exposure and environmental-source evidence, not cookware occurrence evidence.
Key numbers
The overall mean blood lead level was 4.3 +/- 0.75 ug/dL in Table 1, with 12 of 86 children (13.95%, reported as 14.0% in the table) above 5.0 ug/dL. Mean blood lead was 4.3 +/- 0.78 ug/dL in males and 4.4 +/- 0.71 ug/dL in females, with no significant gender difference.
Table 4 reports lead levels in 10 specimens per environmental matrix:
| Environmental specimen | Pb mean +/- SD | Range | Comparator listed by source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soil | 89.8 +/- 71.1 mg/kg | 3.34-177.5 mg/kg | 250-400 mg/kg |
| Drinking water, community boreholes | 1.1 +/- 0.7 ug/L | 0.3-2.0 ug/L | Up to 10 ug/L |
| Drinking water, community tap | 1.9 +/- 0.9 ug/L | 0.7-3.3 ug/L | Up to 10 ug/L |
| Paint chips | 82.0 +/- 57.4 mg/kg | 9.64-169.2 mg/kg | Up to 600 mg/kg |
| Water from puddles | 1.1 +/- 0.5 ug/L | 0.6-1.8 ug/L | Not listed in extracted table continuation |
In multivariate logistic regression, history of unexplained abdominal pain was associated with blood lead above 5 ug/dL after adjustment for petrol exposure and toy preference (OR 4.39, 95% CI 1.07-17.9). Children who played with random objects had higher blood lead than children who played with plastic toys in an unshown comparison cited in the results section (4.6 +/- 0.79 versus 4.2 +/- 0.70 ug/dL; p = 0.04).
Methods (brief)
The study used a cross-sectional design and enrolled children aged six years and below who had lived in the study site from birth. Whole blood was collected into EDTA tubes, diluted with 5% nitric acid, centrifuged, and analyzed for lead by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry at 283.3 nm using a Varian AA-1275 instrument; the analytical sensitivity was 1 ug/dL.
Related evidence
Update history
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