CGD Lead Poisoning Bi-weekly Update, November 13

New Publications and Resources

• Lead Exposure and Collective Violence: Evidence from Unsafe Battery Recycling in Africa. Lee Crawfurd. CGD working paper. After battery recycling intensified in 2007, the annual probability of a riot within 5km of unsafe recycling sites in Kenya, Ghana and Senegal rose 19 percentage points more than near other contaminated industrial sites, from a 16% base. Read the blog here.

• Can the World Finally Deliver on Chemical Pollution? Lead is the Test. Maria Jose Talayero Schettino and Theo Mitchell. CGD blog. Ahead of the first conference of the Global Framework on Chemicals, we argue that “lead from all sources”, not just “lead in paint”, should be on the framework's list of priority issues of concern.

• Lead in Europe — ending a toxic legacy. European Environment Agency. Average blood lead levels in Europe fell by about 60% between 2000 and 2019. Current exposure is still associated with more than 62,000 premature deaths a year, which the EEA calls a conservative estimate. Ammunition, fishing tackle, old water pipes and contaminated sites are remaining sources.

• Lead paint detection and child blood-lead levels in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Florence Bodeau-Livinec et al. Hygiene and Environmental Health Advances. This pilot tested whether pregnant women in Abidjan could check their homes for lead paint with a Lumetallix spray-on kit. XRF found lead paint in 90% of 156 homes. The kit picked up 41% of surfaces with lead, mostly missing lead paint covered by newer low-lead paint. Among 28 children tested, the median blood lead level was 5.7 µg/dL.

• Targeted Blood Lead Level Screening Among Selected Hospital Attendees and High-Risk Groups in Bhutan: A Programmatic Assessment. Ministry of Health, Bhutan. Report. Of 1,955 patients screened at five hospitals in March–April 2026, 58% had blood lead levels of at least 3.5 µg/dL. Doctors and nurses chose who to test, so the results are not nationally representative.

• Geospatial mapping of potential lead exposure hotspots in Malawi's major urban cities. CJ Okonkwo, CC Zimba and S Sibale. City and Environment Interactions. Mapping in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu found 92 used lead-acid battery recycling sites, with 140 schools and 105 water points within 1 km of at least one site. The authors say the hotspots identified should guide environmental sampling and blood lead screening.

• Further Estimates of Lead Burden from Various Sources. Rich Fuller. Global Toxics Research Initiative (draft). This draft document gives a table of all evidence we have on the burden of each source in every country with data. It points to food as the largest exposure pathway (with uncertainty).

Job Opportunities

• Pure Earth has 18 job openings in at least 11 countries, including programme roles in Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Brazil, Ghana and Nepal, and a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager and Data Scientist at its New York headquarters. See all openings here.

Upcoming Events

• CGD, UNEP and the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future (PLF) are co-hosting a Lead Corner at the first International Conference of the Global Framework on Chemicals in Geneva, with stalls and interactive sessions on lead all week. See the full schedule here (under Thematic Dialogue Spaces). Plenary sessions will be livestreamed here. Lead Corner sessions are at the Espace Wangari Maathai, in the CICG building.

• Save the date: CGD’s third conference on lead exposure is provisionally scheduled for Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 June 2027 at The View, Royal College of Surgeons of England, in London. More details to come!

Other Announcements

• The UK Health Security Agency has launched a human biomonitoring study using blood and urine samples from the Health Survey for England. The focus is PFAS, but the samples will also be analysed for lead, arsenic and other chemicals, with initial findings expected in 2027. Read more here.

• Siddhartha Roy (Rutgers University), whose work includes lead in drinking water in Flint and in rural water systems in Ghana, has won the 2026 Maddox Prize. Read more here.

• The CDC Foundation is looking for laboratory professionals to review its global Blood Lead (Pb) Testing Toolkit, which covers lab readiness, equipment, analytical methods and sustainable testing services. Reviewers will assess three sections between December 2026 and February 2027. Express interest here.