24709766

PMC3982188

P30 ES000002/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States
R01 ES005257/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States
T42/OH008416/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States

CDC Public Access

Objectives

To examine the relation between occupation and cumulative lead exposure—assessed by measuring bone lead—in a community-dwelling population

Method

We measured bone lead concentration with K-shell X-Ray Fluorescence in 1,320 men in the Normative Aging Study. We categorized job titles into 14 broad US Census Bureau categories. We used ordinary least squares regression to estimate bone lead by job categories adjusted for other predictors.

Results

Service Workers, Construction and Extractive Craft Workers, and Installation, Maintenance and Repair Craft Workers had the highest bone lead concentrations. Including occupations significantly improved the overall model (p<0.001) and reduced by −15% to −81% the association between bone lead and education categories.

Conclusion

Occupation significantly predicts cumulative lead exposure in a community-dwelling population, and accounts for a large proportion of the association between education and bone lead.