Relationships between blood lead, behaviour, psychometric and neuropsychological test performance in young children

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Abstract
A sample of 201 inner city dwelling children age 5.5 years was assessed on a wide variety of cognitive, performance, neuropsychological and behavioural measures. Extensive sociodemographic and family indices were also assessed. Body burden of lead was derived from a venous sample of blood. Data were analysed using both univariate and multivariate techniques. Results show that the initial correlations between blood lead and the outcome measures were generally few and low. No significant relationship was found between overall IQ and blood lead and the one marginally significant association found when the sample was split by father's occupation proved non‐significant on multivariate analysis. The only outcome measures that showed a significant association with blood lead following multivariate analysis were some tests requiring motor skills (where performance generally speeded up with increasing blood lead) and one reaction time measure where the converse obtained.

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