title: Environmental ecological modeling of human blood lead levels in East Asia.
abstract: Environmental ecological modeling (EEM), which unifies models simulating transport of chemicals and exposure of humans to chemicals, was used to simulate long-term trends of female adult human blood lead levels (BLLs) and historical exposure to the atmospheric lead in four East Asian countries: Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam. Anthropogenic lead emissions to the atmosphere in Vietnam were estimated from energy statistics to be 1931 t yr(-1). Calculated BLLs generally agreed with those observed in samples collected in these countries as the error factors were less than 2. The model results revealed that BLLs decreased significantly in Tokyo (by 58%) and Seoul (by 45%) in recent decades and confirmed the effects of efforts to reduce environmental lead in Japan and Korea. The model results also revealed that BLLs in Beijing did not decrease in this decade as much as in Tokyo and Seoul, despite the phasing out of leaded gasoline, and that the contribution from the atmospheric component was increasing (43% in 2009). Finally, we applied EEM to simulate BLLs of children in Hanoi. The probability of children having BLLs greater than 50 μg L(-1) was 7.5%, which was greater than those observed in developed countries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
authors.forename: Tamon
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Niisoe
authors.forename: Kouji H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Harada
authors.forename: Toshiaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hitomi
authors.forename: Takao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Nguyen Ngoc
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Hung
authors.forename: Hirohiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishikawa
authors.forename: Zifa
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Akio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koizumi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry; D002648:Child; D002681:China; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000097:blood*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007723:Korea; D007854:Lead / Q000097:blood*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D014744:Vietnam
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D007854:Lead