Lead intervention and pediatric blood lead levels at hazardous waste sites

Abstract

Lead intervention at Superfund sites typically seeks to reduce pediatric blood lead levels by disrupting the surface-to-hand-to-mouth pathway. This article presents the results of a survey of the publicly available literature on the effectiveness of lead intervention on pediatric blood lead levels at hazardous waste sites. The survey includes six hazardous waste sites located in Canada, Australia, and the United States at which intervention activities were conducted and pediatric blood lead levels were sampled both pre- and postintervention. Evaluation of the effectiveness of intervention on pediatric blood lead levels is often complicated due to confounding variables and statistical limitations. Nevertheless, the outcomes of the intervention studies reviewed in this report suggest that various approaches to the intervention of the dust ingestion pathway, alone or in combination, contributed to declines in blood lead levels in children living in areas heavily contaminated with lead.