Blood Lead Concentrations of Children in the United States: A Comparison of States Using Two Very Large Databases

Objectives To determine whether there are substantial differences by state between 2 large population-based datasets in the proportion of children with elevated blood lead levels (BLLs); to identify states in which the percentage of elevated BLLs is high in either or both datasets; and to compare the percentage of elevated BLLs in individual states with those of children living in Flint, Michigan, during the months when these children were exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water. Study design Tables of BLLs for individual states from the Quest Diagnostics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention datasets for 2014-2015, containing more than 3 million BLLs of young children