Caleigh Smith, Research Assistant, Presents Lead Exposure Data at Primary Care and Hospital Medicine Innovations Symposium

Haiti has among the highest lead levels in the world. Reportedly, used car batteries (shown left) are melted down and turned into cooking pots (shown right), presenting a potential exposure source for lead.

Earlier this week, Caleigh Smith, a research assistant with the Center of Global Health, was selected to present new data about lead exposure and hypertension in Haiti at Weill Cornell’s Primary Care and Hospital Medicine Innovations Symposium. Her abstract submission was selected for oral presentation as one of the top four abstracts submitted to the conference committee.

Caleigh presented preliminary data from a larger RO1 study in Haiti designed to determine the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and outcomes with a longitudinal cohort of adults from Port au Prince. CVD is the most common cause of death in Haiti, and hypertension has been found to be the most prevalent CVD risk factor. Therefore, the sub-study presented this week aimed to determine how lead exposure may be contributing to prevalent and incident hypertension in Haiti.

Preliminary results revealed high levels of lead within a population-representative sample of 736 adults from Port au Prince. The average blood lead level (BLL) was 5.0 ug/dL, compared with an average BLL of less than 1.0 ug/dL among adults in the United States. Furthermore, additional analyses suggested that participants with the highest BLL also had elevated blood pressure compared with the participants with lower BLL. This suggests that environmental lead exposure may be contributing to hypertension in Haiti.

The data presented this week was only the first step towards addressing the issues of lead exposure and CVD in Haiti. Future research efforts will aim to characterize adults at the highest risk of lead exposure, identify sources of lead in the community, and more precisely model the contribution of lead to hypertension while controlling for other CVD risk factors. This research will be instrumental in designing interventions to prevent lead exposure and ultimately work toward reducing early onset hypertension and rates of cardiovascular disease across Haiti.