Lead exposure in children aged 4-7 years in darkhan city

Abstract

Introduction: Even a small amount of lead in human body has harmful effect on health. Children are more vulnerable to lead than adults. Air pollution in Darkhan city is increasing in the last years. The main sources of air pollution are burning of coal in ger districts and vehicles. There are many studies of children’s blood lead level in Ulaanbaatar city but it doesn’t have any comparable study in Darkhan. Thus, the aim of the study was to assess lead exposure of children in Darkhan. Methods: The population that we studied consisted of 167 children, including 80 boys and 87 girls aged 4 to 7 years old from Darkhan. Blood lead levels were measured using the Lead Care II. And parents of the children filled out a structured questionnaire with 6 sections. STATA 14 were used for statistical analysis. Results: The mean BLL of children in Darkhan was 3.96 µg/dl, (95% CI 1.6514.6µg/dl) and 22.2% of the children had BLLs ≥5 µg/dl. BLL of children live in ger districts was higher than children live in an apartment (p=0.048). Coal burning for cooking is being risk factor of lead exposure (p=0.02).