Firearm-Related Lead Exposure and Child Lead Levels in the United States, 2012-2018.

Autor: Hoover C; Department of Epidemiology, Brown School of Public Health, Providence, RI; Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Electronic address: Christian_hoover@brown.edu., Fossa AJ; Department of Epidemiology, Brown School of Public Health, Providence, RI., Ranney ML; Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT., Hoover GG; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA., Specht AJ; School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN., Hemenway D; Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA., Braun JM; Department of Epidemiology, Brown School of Public Health, Providence, RI.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Journal of pediatrics [J Pediatr] 2024 Jun; Vol. 269, pp. 113975. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Feb 23.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2024.113975
Abstrakt: Objective: To determine if firearm ownership is positively related to elevated child lead levels at a state-level, even when accounting for other sources of lead.
Study Design: For this cross-sectional ecological study, we investigated whether household firearm ownership rates (a proxy for firearm-related lead exposure) was associated with the prevalence of elevated child blood lead levels in 44 US States between 2012 and 2018. To account for potential confounding, we adjusted for other known lead exposures, poverty rate, population density, race, and calendar year. To address missing data, we used multiple imputation by chained equations.
Results: Prevalence of elevated child blood lead positively correlated with household firearm ownership and established predictors of lead exposure. In fully adjusted negative binomial regression models, child blood lead was positively associated with household firearm ownership and older housing; each IQR (14%) increase in household firearm ownership rate was associated with a 41% higher prevalence of childhood elevated blood lead (prevalence ratio: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.11-1.79).
Conclusion: These data provide state-level evidence that firearms may be an important source of child lead exposure. More research is needed to substantiate this relationship and identify modifiable pathways of exposure at the individual level.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest JMB has been compensated for serving as an expert witness for plaintiffs involved in PFAS-contaminated drinking water and has NIH funding: R21 ES034187. MR has grants from the CDC and NIH related to firearm injury, and has unpaid roles as Senior Strategic Advisor to AFFIRM at the Aspen Institute and as a Board Member for the NonViolence Institute. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
(Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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