title: Evaluating predictors of lead exposure for activities disturbing materials painted with or containing lead using historic published data from U.S. workplaces.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  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.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Locke
authors.affiliation: Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
authors.forename: Nicole C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Deziel
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, International St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic Kwandong University, Incheon, Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Koh
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Biostatistics Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Barry I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Graubard
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Mark P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Purdue
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Melissa C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Friesen
mesh_terms: D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational / Q000032:analysis; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D007854:Lead / Q000032:analysis*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010150:Paint; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational; D007854:Lead
keywords: exposure determinants; lead; meta-regression; occupational exposure; population-based studies