The Legacy Lead Deposition in Soils and Its Impact on Cognitive Function in Preschool-Aged Children in the United States

Abstract

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The concurrent decline of soil lead and children’s blood lead in New Orleans

“…In metropolitan New Orleans, children living in communities with elevated SPb and BPb have the lowest school performance scores and, vice versa, children living in communities with lowest SPb have the highest school performance scores (65, 66). In a national study on the federal Interstate Highway System legacy SPb and preschool cognitive ability, a strong association was observed between legacy SPb and the ability of young boys (not young girls) to perform learning, memory, and decision-making activities (67). In New Orleans, the outcomes of temporal increases and decreases of TEL have been related to latent trends of aggravated assault rates that rose about 20 y later than the upswing TEL and decreased about 20 y after TEL use subsided (68).…”

Life after Lead: Effects of Early Interventions for Children Exposed to Lead

“…First, intervention may dramatically reduce the amount of continued childhood exposure to the dangerous neurotoxin by directly reducing exposure risks within the home environment. 9 Second, long-term benefits may occur through improvements in early life health unrelated to any changes in lead exposure. 10 We cannot separately identify these two mechanisms or estimate the effects of specific elements of these elevated BLL intervention packages.…”

“…On the other hand, we estimate large effects for individuals eligible for treatments not 8 See Currie and Almond (2011) for a recent review. 9 Benefits from reductions in environmental lead levels are expected given several recent studies showing evidence of a causal relationship between exposure and long-term outcomes (Aizer and Currie 2017;Clay, Troesken, and Haines 2014;Grønqvist, Nilsson, and Robling 2014;Rau, Reyes, and Urzúa 2015;Ferrie, Rolf, and Troesken 2012;Reyes 2011;Nilsson 2009;Troesken 2008;Reyes 2007). 10 The elevated BLL intervention package includes treatments previously demonstrated to impact later life outcomes, such as visits from health workers; increased medical care; nutritional assessments and dietary modifications; and referral to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).…”

Toxic Truth: Lead and Fertility

“…To explore the current relevance of our findings, and shed light on the legacy effects of airborne lead, we estimate the effect of lead topsoil on fertility in the 2000s. Historical airborne lead emissions were deposited and accumulated in topsoil for several decades (Mielke, Laidlaw, and Gonzales 2011), and have been shown to affect other important societal outcomes (Clay, Portnykh, and Severnini 2019). For this analysis, we use data on lead concentration in soil from the U.S. Geological Survey.…”