Background

Lead is a pervasive environmental contaminant. Lead accumulates in the body, impairing a molecular level various cellular processes. Lead exposure during childhood causes adverse and permanent neurodevelopmental consequences, sometimes even with “low” blood lead levels. Symptoms are frequently silent, making lead exposure an often unrecognized and underestimated threat for pervasive neurocognitive disorders.

Methods

We identified articles focusing on childhood exposure to lead and neurodevelopment via a search of the electronic database PubMed (National Library of Medicine), including journal articles published from 2007 to 2019. These articles were used to evaluate the effect of environmental lead exposure and analyze whether control efforts over the past decades have altered the prevalence of exposed children.

Conclusions

Children are still being exposed to lead despite evidence of the adverse impact of exposure, even for children with blood lead levels below the currently recognized threshold for intervention. Legislative and educational efforts have brought significant reductions in lead exposure but are not being followed universally. Primary prevention and identification of high-risk populations are the best cost-benefit interventions to fight this public health problem.

中文翻译：

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儿童铅中毒：一个长期存在的公共卫生问题

背景

铅是一种普遍存在的环境污染物。铅在体内积累，在分子水平上损害各种细胞过程。儿童时期的铅暴露会导致不良和永久性的神经发育后果，有时甚至会导致“低”血铅水平。症状通常是无声的，这使得铅暴露对普遍的神经认知障碍来说往往是一种未被认识和低估的威胁。

方法

我们通过搜索电子数据库 PubMed（国家医学图书馆）确定了关注儿童铅暴露和神经发育的文章，包括 2007 年至 2019 年发表的期刊文章。这些文章用于评估环境铅暴露的影响并分析是否过去几十年的控制努力改变了暴露儿童的流行率。

结论

尽管有证据表明暴露会产生不利影响，但儿童仍然暴露于铅中，即使是血铅水平低于目前公认的干预阈值的儿童。立法和教育工作已显着减少铅暴露，但并未得到普遍遵循。初级预防和识别高危人群是对抗这一公共卫生问题的最佳成本效益干预措施。