Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health 211 (2008) 82–87 Relationship between low blood lead levels and growth in children of white-collar civil servants in Korea Kyoung-Bok Min a,b , Jin-Young Min a , Sung-Il Cho a , Rokho Kim a , Ho Kim a , Domyung Paek a,Ã a School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, Chongno-gu Yongeun-dong 28, Seoul 110-460, Republic of Korea b Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Incheon Choongang General Hospital, 4 Polytechnic College-gil (47-3, Gusan-dong), Incheon, Republic of Korea Received 5 May 2006; received in revised form 21 November 2006; accepted 6 March 2007 Abstract The study examined the relationship between low blood lead levels and the physical growth of children in Seoul, Korea. Data were collected from 108 children (62 boys, 46 girls) aged 5–13 years, and the mean of the blood lead levels was 2.4 mg/100 ml (SD ¼ 0.7). The data analyzed included the blood lead levels, height, total arm length, weight, body mass index (BMI), and father’s level of education. We used four multiple linear regression models with height, total arm length, weight, and BMI as the dependent variables, and age, sex, father’s level of education, and blood lead levels as independent variables. In the multiple linear regression analysis, we found statistically significant, negative associations of height (po0.02) and total arm length (po0.01) with blood lead levels, but no association between blood lead or weight and BMI. Our study suggests that low blood lead levels specifically influence children’s physical growth. r 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. Keywords: Low blood lead levels; Children; Physical growth; Height; Total arm length Introduction The Third National Health and Nutrition Examina- tion Survey found that the mean blood lead levels of the United States population has declined by 78% since the late 1970s (Pirkle et al., 1994). The preventive activities that removed the lead exposure from leaded gasoline and soldered cans resulted in this dramatic reduction. In Korea, the lead concentrations in ambient air from three major cities fell by 68% on average between 1991 and 1998 (Fig. 1). The mean blood lead levels of the Korean general population decreased from 9.46 mg/100 ml in 1993 (Kim and Kim, 1993) to 5.79 mg/100 ml in 1996 (Yang et al., 1996). This decline probably resulted from the ban of lead in gasoline after 1993. Despite the dramatic decline in blood lead levels, sources of lead exposure exist everywhere: from eating habits to lead-contaminated environments (Freeman et al., 1997; Lanphear et al., 1998), including water pollution (Nordberg et al., 1985), food packaging that contains lead (Yoo et al., 2001), and air pollution (Choi et al., 2001). Evaluating the potential health effects of lead on the general public is necessary (Goyer, 1990), although they are subtle. This is particularly true for children, who are ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.de/ijheh 1438-4639/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijheh.2007.03.003 Ã Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 740 8886; fax: +82 2 747 7082. E-mail address: paekdm@snu.ac.kr (D. Paek).