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Behavioral and Environmental Explanations of Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Immigrant Children and Children of Immigrants

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Abstract

Immigrant/refugee children sometimes have substantially higher blood lead levels (BLLs) than US-born children in similar environments. We try to understand why, by exploring the relationship between immigration status of mother and the BLLs of US-born children. We compared BLLs of children born in Michigan to immigrant and non-immigrant parents, using the Michigan database of BLL tests for 2002–2005, which includes the child’s race, Medicaid eligibility and address. We added census data on socio-demographic/housing characteristics of the child’s block group, and information about parents. Low parental education, single parent households, mothers’ smoking and drinking, all increase the child’s BLL. However, immigrant parents had fewer characteristics associated with high BLL than US born parents, and their children had lower BLLs than children of US-born mothers. Our findings suggest that prior findings of higher BLLs among immigrant/refugee children probably result from them starting life in high-lead environments.

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Abbreviations

BLL:

Blood lead level

EBLL:

Elevated blood lead level

μg:

Microgram

CI:

Confidence interval

Coeff.:

Coefficient

dL:

Deciliter

HLM:

Hierarchical linear modeling

Ln:

Logarithm to base e

MDCH:

Michigan Department of Community Health

SD:

Standard deviation

SE:

Standard error

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Robert L. Scott for providing us with the Michigan Department of Community Health data base of BLL tests and providing the census block group for each address, Dr. Warren Brown for providing census 2000 data about each block group, Glenn Copeland for arranging the merging of the Registry of Live Births with the other MDCH data, Richard Miles for assisting with data processing and Dr. Steven J. Gold for valuable advice about the literature on immigrants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, Rm 418B Berkey Hall, 509 E Circle Drive, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1111, USA

    Stan A. Kaplowitz & Harry Perlstadt

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    James D. Dziura & Lori A. Post

Authors
  1. Stan A. Kaplowitz
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  2. Harry Perlstadt
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  3. James D. Dziura
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  4. Lori A. Post
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Correspondence to Stan A. Kaplowitz.

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Kaplowitz, S.A., Perlstadt, H., Dziura, J.D. et al. Behavioral and Environmental Explanations of Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Immigrant Children and Children of Immigrants. J Immigrant Minority Health 18, 979–986 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-015-0243-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-015-0243-8

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