Development of an air quality standard for lead from community studies.
A methodology for the development of an air quality standard (AQS) for lead is presented. It is shown that the results of community studies can be used to calculate the air lead level at which the cumulative frequency distribution of blood lead values of a population will meet a biological guideline for blood lead. The procedure is illustrated by using the data on the relationship between blood lead and air lead obtained in two well-known epidemiological studies. A variety of analyses, involving different blood lead-air lead models, blood lead frequency distributions, and data bases, are included to study the sensitivity of the methodology to variations in assumptions and calculation procedures. The proposed methodology is general and can be used in the development of any AQS for which the appropriate biological guidelines is expressed in the form of a cumulative frequency distribution.