Factors affecting lead, cadmium, and arsenic levels in house dust in a smelter town in eastern Germany.

Hettstedt, a city in eastern Germany with a long history of mining and smelting of nonferrous ores, has several industrial sources of heavy metals. The indoor exposure to metals of children (5 to 14 years old) in the Hettstedt area was assessed by measuring the levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic contamination in sedimented house dust. Factors which influence the dust loading rate and the surface loading rates of these contaminants in house dust were investigated. The geometric mean of the dust loading rate was 8.9 mg/m2 day. The geometric means of surface loading rates were 1.14, 0. 024, and 0.023 microg/m2 day for lead, cadmium, and arsenic, respectively. Factors that were significantly associated with surface loading rates included the city area of residence, automobile traffic near home, parent with occupational exposure to heavy metals, type of heating, housing characteristics, whether child's home is damp, number of persons living in the child's home, and parents' education. The most significant of these factors was the city area of residence, which reflects the distance from the metal sources; this factor accounted for about half of the variances explained by the regression models.