Indicator Report - Lead Exposure: Children Born in the Same Year and Tested for Lead Before Age Three Years
Why Is This Important?
Environmental lead is a common toxic metal, present in all areas of the United States. Lead exposure and lead poisoning is preventable. Lead exposure can affect nearly every organ and system in the body, adversely affecting the nervous, blood, hormonal, kidney, and reproductive systems. Children are more vulnerable to lead poisoning than adults. Children from all social and economic levels can be affected. The bodies of young children absorb lead more readily than adults. During the first three years of life, children's brains are growing the fastest, developing the critical connections in the nervous system that control thought, learning, hearing, movement, behavior, and emotions. The normal behaviors of children at this age, such as crawling, exploring, teething, and putting objects in their mouth, put them at an increased risk for lead exposure. Even blood lead levels lower than 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL) may be associated with negative outcomes for children, such as cognitive impairment, delayed development, changes in behavior, kidney problems and anemia. There is no known safe level of exposure to lead. The state requires all children enrolled in Medicaid be tested for lead exposure at ages 12 months and 24 months.Children Born in the Same Year and Tested for Lead Before Age 3 - Percentage by County, New Mexico 2008
Data Notes
Approximately 4% of children were missing county of residence; therefore some county-level percentages could change if unknown county data are identified.The US measure includes data from the 34 states reporting high quality data to the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, including Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming from 2007.Data Sources
Birth Certificate Data, Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), New Mexico Department of Health.National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionNew Mexico Department of Health Blood Lead Database.Other Views
Definition
The percentage of children born in the same year and tested before age three years is the number of children born in the same year who were blood lead tested prior to the age of three years divided by the number of children born in that year.How We Calculated the Rates
| Numerator: | Number of NM resident children born in the same year who were tested for lead prior to the age of three years. |
| Denominator: | Number of children born to NM residents in the selected year. |
Page Content Updated On 07/06/2012,
Published on 07/27/2012
