Prenatal arsenic and mercury levels among women practicing geophagy in areas with artisanal and small-scale gold mining activities, Northwestern Tanzania

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) areas potentially pose increased exposure to arsenic and mercury through community contamination, occupations at gold mines, and/or geophagy when soil is locally sourced. This study examined the effects of geophagy, a deliberate soil eating practice, along with community and occupational exposures in ASGM areas on urinary arsenic and blood mercury levels among pregnant women in the Mining and Health Longitudinal Cohort in northwestern Tanzania. Data on maternal arsenic and mercury levels were captured for 1056 pregnant women using an unprovoked morning urine samples and dried blood spots respectively. We used a step-wise generalized linear regression model to retain the most relevant covariates for the model. A generalized linear regression model with identity link function was used to predict the effect of geophagy practices on arsenic and mercury levels separately. The model was adjusted using sociodemographic correlates, including maternal age, education level, whether respondents lived in mining or non-mining area, years of residence, marital status, maternal occupation, individual partner's education, and occupational, and socioeconomic status. In the adjusted regression model, eating soil during pregnancy increased arsenic concentration by almost 23% (β = 1.229, 95% CI: 1.094, 1.38, p