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Data

Lead concentrations in the blood of children in the United States

About this data

Source
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 1, 2021
Date range
1978–2016
Unit
µg/dL

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Lead blood concentrations in USA

This measures the median and 95th percentile of lead blood concentrations in 1-5 year olds in the United States from the 1970s onwards.

  • Data is obtained from an ongoing continuous survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics.
  • Survey data are representative of the U.S. general population.
  • Lead is measured in blood samples obtained from individual survey participants.
Retrieved on
January 1, 2021
Retrieved from
https://www.epa.gov/americaschildrenenvironment/ace-biomonitoring-lead
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and National Center for Environmental Health. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2021).

This measures the median and 95th percentile of lead blood concentrations in 1-5 year olds in the United States from the 1970s onwards.

  • Data is obtained from an ongoing continuous survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics.
  • Survey data are representative of the U.S. general population.
  • Lead is measured in blood samples obtained from individual survey participants.
Retrieved on
January 1, 2021
Retrieved from
https://www.epa.gov/americaschildrenenvironment/ace-biomonitoring-lead
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and National Center for Environmental Health. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2021).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Lead concentrations in the blood of children in the United States”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) – processed by Our World in Data. “Lead concentrations in the blood of children in the United States” [dataset]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Lead blood concentrations in USA” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

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