Clusters without notifications will not appear on the chart or table. Rates are not displayed for clusters with counts of less than five. Rates were age-adjusted using the Australian population as at 30 June 2001.
Source:
NSW Notifiable Diseases Database and ABS population estimates (HOIST). Centre for Epidemiology and Research, NSW Health.
Small children engaging in hand-mouth activity are particularly at risk of ingesting lead. Lead soot on eating utensils, and flakes of lead paint in soil or house dust, are known sources of lead. The removal of lead from petrol has been associated with significant decreases in air lead levels, largely removing this source of exposure.
Once absorbed into the body, lead can impair children's mental and physical development. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) goal is to achieve, for all Australians, a blood lead level of less than 10 micrograms per decilitre (microg/dL).
Broken Hill, North Lake Macquarie, and Port Kembla have been the major sites of lead mining and processing in New South Wales. The New South Wales Lead Management Action Plan established the Lead Reference Centre and Environmental Health Centres in Broken Hill and North Lake Macquarie. Their activities have included blood lead monitoring and case management, collaboration with the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation and industry to reduce emissions, removal of lead contaminated soil and house dust, and community education.
Since child blood lead testing began in North Lake Macquarie in 1991, there has been a steady decline in average blood lead levels among children (1 to 4 years) although some children still have blood lead levels above 10 microg/dL. With closure of the smelter in September 2003, the typical peak in blood lead levels of children under 3 years of age has been significantly reduced.
Elevated blood lead levels became a notifiable condition in New South Wales in 1997. The above chart shows most elevated blood lead levels identified in Hunter New England children are in the Greater Newcastle area which includes the North Lake Macquarie area. The peaks in notifications of blood lead levels are predominantly due to sporadic batch reporting by a single occupational screening laboratory. The Environmental Health Centre in North Lake Macquarie will continue to monitor child blood lead levels for a period of time to observe if elevated lead levels in children fall and remain at low levels.
For more information:
Hunter Public Health Unit (2003). Public Information Paper - North Lake Macquarie Blood Lead Monitoring Service Summary of Results (July 2002-June 2003).
Although this page can be printed directly from your Web browser,
a higher quality version of this entire page (graph, table and text)
is available as an Acrobat PDF file which can be printed or viewed on screen
using Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software).
The data contained in the table on this page are available for download as a CSV file which can be
imported into many software packages. The graph is available for download as an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file
and as an EMF (Enhanced Metafile Format) file. Files in these formats can be imported into most word processing,
presentation and graphics software packages.
Rider:
The information presented in this report result from analyses of a variety of social and health focused datasets. These datasets originate from a variety of sources including Hunter New England Health, the NSW Department of Health, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The timing of the release of these data to third parties is controlled by the owner of these data. It is therefore possible for these organisations to publish data that they have not yet made available to Hunter New England Population Health for analysis and release. Users should therefore check the publications of these organisations as it is possible that they may have published even more up to date information on Hunter New England than those available in this report. As this report is an ongoing project, the indicators presented will be updated as soon as possible after the release of all datasets to Hunter New England Population Health.
Copyright notice:
This work is copyright Hunter New England Area Health Service, 2005. It may be reproduced
in whole or in part, subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source. Commercial usage or sale is prohibited.
Hunter New England Population Health. Health in Hunter New England. Hunter New England Area Health Service, 2005. Available at:
http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/HHNE/env/env_lead.htm. Accessed (insert date of access).
Top of page
Table of contents
