ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Quantifying uncertainty: a practical comparison of Bayesian and frequentist meta-analytic frameworks applied to lead exposure and children's IQ.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Pooled it
- Assessment of arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances concentrations in human milk and infant formula in the United States: a systematic review.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Association between heavy metals exposure and risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Chemical Exposures and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2024Pooled it
- Article
- Built-in electric field-boosted attomolar Pb²⁺ sensing on carboxylated black phosphorene.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Perinatal lead (Pb) exposure and alterations to amyloid beta and metabolic profiles in the brain.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Mapping Steroidogenic Perturbations Under Endocrine Disruptor Mixtures Across Demographic Subgroups: Structural and Metabolomic Insights.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Health insurance, healthcare access, and their roles in the association between blood lead levels and epigenetic aging in United States adults.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Soil Lead Risks Associated With Urbanization Histories in Springfield MA and Hartford CT, USA.GeoHealth · 2026Article
- Tracing spatial mid-size Eastern U.S. cities road dust pollution: insights from source apportionment and health risk assessment.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2026Article
- Dentine markers of pre/early postnatal lead exposure links with brain, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in adolescents.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Single stereocenter inversion of a cyclic tetrapeptide enables the detoxification of lead-exposed mice.Chemical science · 2026Article
- Prenatal and Early Postnatal Lead Exposure and Later Adulthood Cognitive Function in the St. Louis Baby Tooth-Later Life Health Study.Neurology · 2026Article
- Modeling Elevated Children's Blood Lead Levels across Five U.S. States: A Statistical Approach to Improve Predictions and Understand Key Drivers.ACS environmental Au · 2026Article
- Historical Redlining and Racial Disparities in Child Blood Lead Levels in Southeastern Wisconsin.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Association of sports and physical activity with mild traumatic brain injury and behavioral and neurocognitive function.Brain injury · 2026Article
- Cumulative childhood lead exposure estimation and school-age IQ in a prospective birth cohort.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2025Article
- Explainable machine-learning-based predictions of blood lead levels and school drinking water contamination among children: a case study in Washington DC.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Environmentally relevant lead exposure impacts gene expression in SH-SY5Y cells throughout neuronal differentiation.Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
SignificanceConsiderable effort is expended to protect today's children from lead exposure, but there is little evidence on the harms past lead exposures continue to hold for yesterday's children, who are victims of what we term legacy lead exposures. We estimate that over 170 million Americans alive today were exposed to high-lead levels in early childhood, several million of whom were exposed to five-plus times the current reference level. Our estimates allow future work to plan for the health needs of these Americans and to inform estimation of the true contributions of lead exposure to population health. We estimate population-level effects on IQ loss and find that lead is responsible for the loss of 824,097,690 IQ points as of 2015.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.