The Relationship between Early Childhood Blood Lead Levels and Performance on End-of-Grade Tests

2007

The Impact of Early Childhood Blood Lead Levels on School Performance

Sample size: 8603 publication 10 minutes Evidence: high

Author Information

Author(s): Miranda Marie Lynn, Kim Dohyeong, Galeano M. Alicia Overstreet, Paul Christopher J. Hull, Andrew P. Hull, Morgan S. Philip

Primary Institution: Duke University

Are blood lead levels in early childhood related to educational achievement in early elementary school?

Early childhood blood lead levels negatively impact performance on end-of-grade tests, especially in reading.

Blood lead levels as low as 2 μg/dL impact educational achievement.
A blood lead level of 5 μg/dL is associated with a decline in EOG reading scores by roughly 15%.
Children with higher blood lead levels have higher failure rates on end-of-grade tests.
Early childhood lead exposure has a more significant impact on reading than on mathematics.
Statistical analyses show a clear negative relationship between blood lead levels and test scores.
Children screened for lead were linked to their educational outcomes over several years.
Results indicate that lead exposure effects are significant even below the current CDC action level.

Kids who have higher lead levels in their blood when they are young tend to do worse on school tests.

Linked educational testing data for 4th-grade students to blood lead surveillance data and analyzed using statistical methods.

Children screened for lead were not randomly drawn from the population, raising concerns of selectivity bias.

The study relied on indirect measures of parental IQ and quality of the home environment, which may overestimate lead exposure effects.

Participants included 4th-grade students from seven counties in North Carolina, with a focus on white and black children.

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