. 2023 May 5;33(6):903–910. doi: 10.1038/s41370-023-00554-w

Table 3.

Associations between salivary metal concentrations and child and family characteristics.

	Child Sex	State	Child race	Child BMI	Family INR:
	MD	MD	MD
	p-value	p-value	p-value	rho, p-value	rho, p-value
Cr	MD_F = 7.18	MD_NC = 7.68	MD_NB = 6.04
	MD_M = 6.99	MD_PA = 5.76	MD_BL = 7.86
	0.396	0.017	<0.0001	0.117, 0.074	−0.16, 0.015
Cu	MD_F = 11.4	MD_NC = 12.6	MD_NB = 13.4
	MD_M = 12.7	MD_PA = 9.40	MD_BL = 11.5
	0.373	0.482	0.111	−0.011, 0.868	−0.089, 0.168
Mn	MD_F = 3.44	MD_NC = 4.28	MD_NB = 5.34
	MD_M = 3.29	MD_PA = 3.26	MD_BL = 3.07
	0.774	0.189	0.007	−0.12, 0.065	0.081, 0.213
Zn	MD_F = 47.4	MD_NC = 46.7	MD_NB = 40.8
	MD_M = 40.9	MD_PA = 38.7	MD_BL = 46.7
	0.512	0.165	0.171	0.033, 0.607	−0.299, 0.0004
Pb	MD_F = 18.6	MD_NC = 15.3	MD_NB = 20.3
	MD_M = 17.7	MD_PA = 8.7	MD_BL = 14.7
	0.791	0.869	0.038	0.181, 0.387	0.162, 0.438
Ni	MD_F = 15.2	MD_NC = 15.4	MD_NB = 18.8
	MD_M = 17.8	MD_PA = 21.2	MD_BL = 15.0
	0.539	0.366	0.645	−0.192, 0.262	0.039, 0.821

BMI body mass index; In/Ratio, family income-to-needs ratio. State refers to the child state of residence. Correlations to BMI and income-to-needs ration (INR) were determined by Spearman correlation. Differences in median (MD) levels by sex, state and race were determined using the Mann–Whitney test. BL Black/African American; NB not Black/African American. For these associations, values that were below the LLoD were substituted with the LLoD values (Table 2) prior to the calculations, except for Pb and Ni, which were present at undetectable levels in >80% of children’s samples. The unit for each metal was in μg/L.

Statistically significant values are in bold.