A Characterization of the Blood Lead Concentrations in Saudi Arabian Children

Abstract

The results presented in this paper are those derived from an extensive analysis of lead in 1047 children aged 2 months to 16 years attending as outpatients at a reference hospital, taking cases from all parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Since the distribution of blood lead data in the sample suggested the existence of two mixed sub groups among the studied children, a non-linear mathematical model was used fit to the data. More than 20% of the children had blood lead concentrations above 0·608μmol/L (12·59μg/dL).