Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance

The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health funds the Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) program, a state-based surveillance program of laboratory-reported adult blood lead levels.In 2009, the ABLES program updated its case definition for an Elevated Blood Lead Level to a blood lead concentration equal or greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter (10 µg/dL). This chart shows CDC/NIOSH/ABLES Elevated blood lead level case definition in perspective. The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health funds the Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) program, a state-based surveillance program of laboratory-reported adult blood lead levels.In 2009, the ABLES program updated its case definition for an Elevated Blood Lead Level to a blood lead concentration equal or greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter (10 µg/dL). This chart shows CDC/NIOSH/ABLES Elevated blood lead level case definition in perspective. The public health objective of the ABLES program is identical to the Occupational Safety and Health objective 7 in Healthy People 2020, which is to reduce the rate of adults (age 16 or older) who have BLLs ≥ 10 µg/dL. The ABLES program aims to accomplish this objective by providing guidance, technical support, and funding to build state capacity to initiate or improve adult blood lead surveillance programs which can accurately measure trends in adult BLLs and which can effectively target interventions to prevent lead exposures.