ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES Correction for “The concurrent decline of soil lead and children’s blood lead in New Orleans,” by Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Mark A. S. Laidlaw, Kenneth J. Berry, Paul W. Mielke Jr., and Sara Perl Egendorf, which was first published October 14, 2019; 10.1073/pnas.1906092116 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116, 22058–22064).
The authors note that Table 1 appeared incorrectly. The corrected table appears below. The online version has been corrected. Additionally, the authors note that on page 22060, left column, third paragraph, there is an error in the statement related to Table 1. The paragraph should instead appear as “Fisher’s Exact Test of Independence. Table 1 shows the matched data for SPb and BPb for 274 census tracts, arranged in two 2-by-2 contingency tables to calculate the probabilities of an association between SPb and BPb for the 2 surveys (35). The null hypothesis is that SPb has no influence on BPb. In the 2001 survey, the median SPb is 99 mg/kg and the median BPb is 3.6 μg/dL. In the 2017 survey, the median SPb is 54 mg/kg and the median BPb is 1.3 μg/dL. Fisher’s exact test P values are 4.0 × 10−46 for 2001 and 1.6 × 10−26 for 2017. These two exceptionally strong test results indicate that the null hypothesis can be rejected. In that case, the decline in SPb powerfully influences the decline in BPb.” The online version has been corrected.
Table 1.
Association between BPb and SPb for 2 New Orleans surveys completed in 2001 and 2017
| Soil lead (SPb) | Census tracts (N) | Blood lead (BPb) | Fisher's exact test P value (ref. 35) |
|
| 2001 | ≥3.6 µg/dL < 3.6 µg/dL | |||
| ≥99 mg/kg | 137 | 124 | 13 | |
| <99 mg/kg | 137 | 13 | 124 | 4.0 × 10−46 |
| 2017 | ≥1.3 µg/dL < 1.3 µg/dL | |||
| ≥54 mg/kg | 137 | 113 | 24 | |
| <54 mg/kg | 137 | 27 | 110 | 1.6 × 10−26 |
The median SPb decreased from 99 mg/kg to 54 mg/kg between 2001 and 2017. The median BPb declined from 3.6 μg/dL to 1.3 μg/dL during the interval between the two SPb surveys. The extremely small P values indicate that the decline in BPb is not unrelated to the decline in SPb.