Recently published medical studies correlate blood lead levels with crime and/or antisocial behavior and were highlighted on this past week's National Public Radio's (NPR) edition of "Living on Earth" (to go to this web site click here). The program featured a segment devoted to the correlation of blood lead levels and crime, based on long term studies recently completed at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. (The link will provide access to an audio tape as well as transcript of the program.)

"Between 1979 and 1984, the researchers recruited pregnant women living in poor areas of Cincinnati, which had a high concentration of older, lead-contaminated housing, into the Cincinnati Lead Study. They measured the women's blood lead concentrations during pregnancy as an indication of their offspring's prenatal lead exposure and the children's blood lead levels regularly until they were six and half years old. They then obtained information from the local criminal justice records on how many times each of the 250 offspring had been arrested between becoming 18 years old and the end of October 2005. The researchers found that increased blood lead levels before birth and during early childhood were associated with higher rates of arrest for any reason and for violent crimes. For example, for every 5 lg/dl increase in blood lead levels at six years of age, the risk of being arrested for a violent crime as a young adult increased by almost 50% (the ''relative risk'' was 1.48)." (from the editor's summary of the "Association of Prenatal and Childhood Blood Lead Concentrations with Criminal Arrests in Early Adulthood" (for the full text of this article click here)" by K. Dietrich et al.).

A related study by colleagues at the two institutions on a comparable cohort of young people demonstrates a significant loss in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain, which region is responsible for behavior and other fine motor control. "These findings indicate that childhood lead exposure is associated with brain volume loss in adults, in specific regions of the brain. These brain regions are responsible for executive functions, regulating behavior, and fine motor control. Lead exposure has a larger effect on brain volumes in men than in women, which might help to explain the higher incidence of antisocial behaviors among men than women. Overall, these findings may explain why children and adults who have a history of lead exposure have behavioral and other problems, and support ongoing efforts to reduce childhood lead exposure in the US and other countries." (from the editor's summary of "Decreased Brain Volume in Adults with Childhood Lead Exposure" (for the full text click here) by K. Cecil et al.).

The Criminal Justice Policy Coalition believes that crime is a public health issue; the foregoing suggests a direct environmental connection. The remediation of early childhood environments which are deleterious to health may well be a cost effective method for reducing violence which should be of particular concern in the current economic climate.

Lloyd Fillion, Treasurer,
and
Joel Pentlarge
Interim Executive Director
Telephone (617) 390-5397