Lead pollution-related health of children in China: Disparity, challenge, and policy

Abstract

Lead (Pb) is a neurotoxic metal, and no level of lead exposure is safe for children. China has still experienced problems on child lead poisoning even though the Chinese government has phased out leaded gasoline since 2000. The underlying problem affecting the lead pollution-related health of children in China remains to be comprehensively investigated. It is found that although the significant decline of BLLs, as the Geometric Mean (GM), from 91.40 μg/LGM in 2001 to 37.52 μg/LGM in 2018 is observed, the average BLLs of children are still above 50 μg/L or more [average 59.70 (60.50–65.02, 95 % CI) μg/LGM] after phasing out leaded gasoline since 2000 in China. Lead exposure causes 29.67 MID per 1000 children with a loss of 98.23 (59.40–146.21, 95 % CI) DALYs per 1000 in China, which is greater than the levels reported from the Western Pacific Region and other low- and middle-income countries. A significant correlation is observed between the number of child crimes (NoCCs) and the outcomes of long-term lead exposure for children in China. Although the disparities in BLLs in China are strongly influenced by unequal distributions of potential multi-lead related sources (soil lead, PM2.5 lead, dust lead), unbalance development of local industrialization and economies, as well as incorrect health care for younger children, the notable emissions from coal combustion (CC) and non-ferrous metals (NMS) exploitation dominate the crucial sources of low-level lead exposure to children after phasing out leaded gasoline in China currently. Faced with the unequal and disparate distribution of BLLs in China, the big bottleneck is to decrease the BLLs exertions of 36–45 μg/L in the next few decades. The Chinese government needs to make more efforts on developing more strict guidelines, implementing more policy strategies on prevention and management of blood Pb poisoning, and monitoring the nationwide changes in children's BLLs continuously.