Researchers from Brown University have found that even low levels of lead in children’s blood can lower future test scores. It’s one of the first studies to isolate lead as a cause, and not just a factor, in student achievement.
In a new working paper, an economist and public health scholars from Brown tried to determine whether lead exposure in early childhood could be linked with 3rd grade reading scores. Lead study author economist Anna Aizer says that wasn’t easy. Children with elevated blood lead levels tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“There are other factors in their lives that would also predict worse test scores later in life,” said Aizer. “So the challenge is really to isolate exposure to lead from all these other factors.”
But Aizer says researchers used multiple data sets about children’s health, schooling, and home lives to control for those other factors. They found that even low amounts of lead in the blood of children three and younger can cause lower reading scores by 3rd grade.
The study is under peer review at the National Bureau of Economics Research.