Environmental health in minority and other underserved populations: Benign methods for identifying lead hazards at day care centres of New Orleans

Abstract

This study tests the hypothesis that exterior sources of lead dust are more important than interior sources in the route of exposure of children. Benign field methods were used to distinguish between potential and actual lead exposure problems. Utilising hand wipe and surface wipe techniques, hand and environmental samples were obtained from selected day care centres at different locations within New Orleans. Previous research has shown that soil lead is determined by location within the city. Private and public day care centres were selected from inner and outer city areas to estimate the extent of hand lead exposure. To measure and identify the extent of environmental lead exposure, hand wipes were taken before and after playing outdoors. Results of preliminary findings show that outdoor lead dust is a more potent contaminant of hands than indoor lead dust. An association was found between the amount of lead on children's hands after playing outdoors and the lead content in the exterior dust and soil. Although two girls out of forty children had exceptionally high hand lead quantities after playing outdoors, in general, boys have higher hand lead levels than girls. The private inner-city day care centre had a severe contamination problem in its outdoor play area. By contrast, the outdoor play area of the public inner city day care centre is of such a high quality that the quantity of lead dust is independent of location in the city.

Changes in manganese and lead in the environment and young children associated with the introduction of methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl in gasoline—preliminary results

“…For example, for 21 children aged 9-24 months living in Omaha, Nebraska, the geometric mean of lead in handwipes was 0.89 mg Pb (range 0.46-2.3) (Manton et al, 2000), lower than the values found in our study for a similar age group. In contrast, Viverette et al (1996) measured highly varying amounts of lead on handwipes from African-American children aged 3-6 years attending four daycare centers in New Orleans, LA. The average for 10 children from each center was 2.8 mg Pb/hand for boys and 1.9 mg Pb/ hand for girls before playing outdoors.…”

Environmental arsenic, cadmium and lead dust emissions from metal mine operations: Implications for environmental management, monitoring and human health

“…The range of soil Pb concentrations across all Broken Hill (24-3,340 mg/kg) is also within the range reported by Glorennec et al (2012) for playgrounds across France (2-3,400 mg/kg) and is similar to Port Pirie playground soil Pb values 22-2,600 mg/kg . In New Orleans, USA, Viverette et al (1996) reported on elevated soil and dust Pb in day care centres, the most impacted returning a median soil Pb concentration of 498 mg/kg (range 287-1,880 mg/kg). Playground 3 at Broken Hill returned a median soil Pb concentration of 2,540 mg/kg (range 1,390-3,340 mg/kg), which is more than five times the most impacted New Orleans day care centre.…”

“…Recent research in the smelting community of Port Pirie, South Australia, identified playground use as a potential source of metal exposure . Similarly, Viverette et al (1996) found in their day care centre hand Pb study that outdoor sources of contamination can be more important for childhood Pb exposure than indoor sources.…”

“…Childhood Pb exposure causes irreversible damage to neurological functions due to its toxicity (National Toxicology Program (NTP) 2012; Needleman, 2004;Taylor et al, 2012;2014b). Children are at higher risk of environmental metal poisoning than adults due to their small body size, earlier stage of development, and because of their tendency to engage in hand-to-mouth behaviour (Kranz et al, 2004;Simon et al, 2007;Viverette et al, 1996). Environmental sources and pathways of exposure are important areas of study for risk mitigation.…”

Characterizing Golden Eagle Risk to Lead and Anticoagulant Rodenticide Exposure: A Review

“…The private inner-city site had a severely contaminated outdoor play area with measured soil lead concentrations ranging from 287 to 1,878 mg/kg. The outdoor play area at the public inner-city site, where children exhibited the lowest hand lead measurements of any site in the study, had been completely paved over with concrete or rubberized asphalt and had well-maintained equipment (Viverette et al 1996).…”