Steenhout A, Pourtois M
Br J Ind Med. 1981 Aug;38(3):297-303. doi: 10.1136/oem.38.3.297.
The level of lead exposure in industrial, urban, and rural populations has been evaluated by sampling permanent teeth gathered from three regions of Belgium. When tooth lead concentrations are plotted against tooth age, a linear function appears to fit the empirical results satisfactorily. On the contrary, comparing only the arithmetical means of the three samples would bring a possible bias of the results because their mean ages are different. The slope of the three best regression lines obtained respectively with data from the three regions increases significantly in the sequence rural less than urban less than industrial. A simplified mathematical model shows that this slope is directly related to the mean intake of lead under uniform exposure. It is suggested that this slope could be used as an index of the population's exposure to lead.
通过对从比利时三个地区采集的恒牙进行采样，评估了工业、城市和农村人口的铅暴露水平。当将牙齿铅浓度与牙齿年龄作图时，线性函数似乎能令人满意地拟合实验结果。相反，仅比较三个样本的算术平均值会导致结果出现可能的偏差，因为它们的平均年龄不同。分别用三个地区的数据得到的三条最佳回归线的斜率，按农村＜城市＜工业的顺序显著增加。一个简化的数学模型表明，该斜率与均匀暴露下铅的平均摄入量直接相关。建议将该斜率用作人群铅暴露的指标。
