PREDICTING BLOOD LEAD CONCENTRATIONS FROM ENVIRONMENTAL CONCENTRATIONS

A method is presented by which blood lead concentrations can be estimated from environmental concentrations using a multipathway analysis. For the ingestion and dermal uptake pathways the incremental increase in blood lead concentration is estimated as the product of the concentration in the relevant medium, a medium-specific contact rate, and an empirically determined ratio between intake and blood level. The inhalation pathway omits the contact rate and uses a ratio between the concentration in blood and the concentration in air. Model outputs corresponding to various input parameters are presented, and some of these are compared with outputs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Lead Biokinetic/Uptake model, Lead 5. © 1992.