Dataset Information

Evaluating predictors of lead exposure for activities disturbing materials painted with or containing lead using historic published data from U.S. workplaces.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:We evaluated predictors of differences in published occupational lead concentrations for activities disturbing material painted with or containing lead in U.S. workplaces to aid historical exposure reconstruction. METHODS:For the aforementioned tasks, 221 air and 113 blood lead summary results (1960-2010) were extracted from a previously developed database. Differences in the natural log-transformed geometric mean (GM) for year, industry, job, and other ancillary variables were evaluated in meta-regression models that weighted each summary result by its inverse variance and sample size. RESULTS:Air and blood lead GMs declined 5%/year and 6%/year, respectively, in most industries. Exposure contrast in the GMs across the nine jobs and five industries was higher based on air versus blood concentrations. For welding activities, blood lead GMs were 1.7 times higher in worst-case versus non-worst case scenarios. CONCLUSIONS:Job, industry, and time-specific exposure differences were identified; other determinants were too sparse or collinear to characterize. Am. J. Ind. Med. 60:189-197, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SUBMITTER: Locke SJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5261829 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evaluating predictors of lead exposure for activities disturbing materials painted with or containing lead using historic published data from U.S. workplaces.

Locke Sarah J SJ Deziel Nicole C NC Koh Dong-Hee DH Graubard Barry I BI Purdue Mark P MP Friesen Melissa C MC

American journal of industrial medicine 20170201 2

<h4>Objectives</h4>We evaluated predictors of differences in published occupational lead concentrations for activities disturbing material painted with or containing lead in U.S. workplaces to aid historical exposure reconstruction.<h4>Methods</h4>For the aforementioned tasks, 221 air and 113 blood lead summary results (1960-2010) were extracted from a previously developed database. Differences in the natural log-transformed geometric mean (GM) for year, industry, job, and other ancillary variab ...[more]

PMID: 28079279

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Project description:ObjectivesThe published literature provides useful exposure measurements that can aid retrospective exposure assessment efforts, but the analysis of this data is challenging as it is usually reported as means, ranges, and measures of variability. We used mixed-effects meta-analysis regression models, which are commonly used to summarize health risks from multiple studies, to predict temporal trends of blood and air lead concentrations in multiple US industries from the published data while accounting for within- and between-study variability in exposure.MethodsWe extracted the geometric mean (GM), geometric standard deviation (GSD), and number of measurements from journal articles reporting blood and personal air measurements from US worksites. When not reported, we derived the GM and GSD from other summary measures. Only industries with measurements in ≥2 time points and spanning ≥10 years were included in our analyses. Meta-regression models were developed separately for each industry and sample type. Each model used the log-transformed GM as the dependent variable and calendar year as the independent variable. It also incorporated a random intercept that weighted each study by a combination of the between- and within-study variances. The within-study variances were calculated as the squared log-transformed GSD divided by the number of measurements. Maximum likelihood estimation was used to obtain the regression parameters and between-study variances.ResultsThe blood measurement models predicted statistically significant declining trends of 2-11% per year in 8 of the 13 industries. The air measurement models predicted a statistically significant declining trend (3% per year) in only one of the seven industries; an increasing trend (7% per year) was also observed for one industry. Of the five industries that met our inclusion criteria for both air and blood, the exposure declines per year tended to be slightly greater based on blood measurements than on air measurements.ConclusionsMeta-analysis provides a useful tool for synthesizing occupational exposure data to examine exposure trends that can aid future retrospective exposure assessment. Data remained too sparse to account for other exposure predictors, such as job category or sampling strategy, but this limitation may be overcome by using additional data sources.

Dataset Information

Evaluating predictors of lead exposure for activities disturbing materials painted with or containing lead using historic published data from U.S. workplaces.

Publications

Evaluating predictors of lead exposure for activities disturbing materials painted with or containing lead using historic published data from U.S. workplaces.

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