Childhood Lead Exposure Prevention: Inventory of Blood Lead Surveillance Capacity Indonesia

In Indonesia, an estimated 8 million children have blood lead levels (BLL) above 5 micrograms per decilitre (μg/dL), a level at which intervention is recommended. Unfortunately, no routine monitoring activities have been carried out in Indonesia that provide data to verify this modelled estimate and fully characterize lead exposure in the national population.

Recently, the Director of Environmental Health – Ministry of Health (MOH) emphasized the importance of generating high-quality data to help understand lead exposure and health burden among Indonesian children. This will be a critical first step toward effective childhood lead exposure prevention along with source reduction, health system strengthening, and awareness raising. With technical support from Yayasan Pure Earth Indonesia and Vital Strategies, the MOH is piloting efforts to establish a blood lead surveillance system in Indonesia.

To initiate this effort, we evaluated the capacity of the existing laboratory capacity and health system structure and provided recommendations for capacity building and viable surveillance options through close collaboration with various technical units under the MOH.