Low-Level, Early Life Lead Exposure and School Behavior.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To measure how early childhood exposure to lead affects school behavior from third to eighth grade, measured by the number and days of total school suspensions and out-of-school suspensions (OSS).

Methods

We estimate Poisson models using a cohort of 284 701 students with school records from 2006-2008 in North Carolina. We adjust for demographic and socioeconomic variables and school-grade-year cohort effects, and use coarsened exact matching to ensure similar characteristics across children with blood lead levels (BLLs) 2-10 μg/dL and children in the reference group with BLLs ≤1 μg/dL.

Results

BLLs ≥3 µg/dL are positively and significantly associated with all school suspension measures for sixth through eighth graders. The estimated effects on OSS for sixth

SUBMITTER: Shadbegian R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11552067 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature