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Purpose: Childhood lead exposure is linked to poorer neurobehavioral function in adolescence, but the relationship between lead and adolescent sleep health remains inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate concurrent and longitudinal associations between lead exposure and multiple sleep health domains in adolescents. Methods: A total of 972 adolescents from China Jintan Child Cohort were included in analyses. The Blood lead levels (BLLs) were assessed in two Waves, at ages 3–5 years (mean 6.50 ± 2.76 μg/dL) and 11–13 years (mean 3.12 ± 1.17 μg/dL). Sleep problems at age 11–13 were parent-reported via the Child Sleep Health Questionnaire (CSHQ) and self-reported by adolescents using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results: Both early and later BLLs were associated positively with parental reported sleep problems, including sleep onset delay, night waking, short duration, parasomnias, and disordered breathing. Sex-stratified analyzes showed that most adjusted associations between two-Wave BLLs and sleep outcomes (CSHQ and PSQI) remained statistically significant in males, with a minor increase in the magnitude of these associations. The association between Wave II BLLs and shorter self-reported sleep duration was only statistically significant in female adolescents. Compared to children with consistently low BLLs at both ages, those with persistently high BLLs at both ages had significantly shorter parental-reported sleep duration and worse sleep onset delay. Conclusion: Findings suggest that both early and later childhood lead exposures link to more adolescent sleep problems, with recent BLLs showing stronger associations with poor adolescent sleep health reported by their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead exposure has been shown to dysregulate physiological stress responses. However, few studies have investigated the effect of lead exposure on later heart rate variability (HRV), an indicator of a stress response, in large samples of children. Furthermore, the interaction between social environmental factors and lead exposure in childhood, which commonly co-occur, remains understudied. This study examined relationships between childhood lead exposure and early adolescent physiological stress responses at different levels of parental education. Participants were 406 children from Jintan, China. Blood lead levels (BLLs) and parental education data were collected at 3–5 years of age, and HRV outcomes assessed at 12 years via frequency domain measures (LF/HF ratio) collected during an induced stress test. Results show a significant interaction between parental education and BLLs at 3–5 years. This relationship was found to be most consistent for the interaction between BLLs and mother's years of education for both the planning (β = 0.12, p = 0.046) and speaking (β = 0.11, p = 0.043) phase of the stress task, suggesting that increasing years of mother's education may enhance the deleterious influence of lead exposure on the HRV frequency measure, LF/HF ratio. This research highlights the complexity in lead exposure induced outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on childhood lead exposure which is still a problem in many cities in the U.S. including Flint in Michigan. Topics include the sources of lead exposure, the confusing clinical guidelines for lead exposure, and the role of occupational health nurses in mitigating childhood lead exposure by educating workers and advocating for blood lead level testing.