ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1635877
Impact of Lead Exposure on Global Chronic Kidney Disease Attributable to Hypertension: Deaths and Disability-Adjusted Life Years from 1990–2021 and Projected Trends for 2022–2036
Provisionally accepted
- 1Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province, Linhai, China
- 2The First People's Hospital of Chenzhou, Chenzhou, China
- 3GuangXi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, China
- 4Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital, Nanning, China
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Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) due to hypertension represents a major global health challenge, with lead exposure exacerbating this burden. Objective: This study aims to analyze the global burden of lead-attributable hypertensive CKD from 1990 to 2021 and project trends over the next 15 years. Method: Data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 study were utilized, focusing on mortality and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Trends were analyzed across 204 countries/territories, categorized into 21 GBD regions and five socio-demographic index (SDI) quintiles. Detailed analyses of case numbers, age-standardized rates (ASRs), age groups, sex differences, and temporal trends were conducted. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to assess the association between SDI and disease burden, frontier analysis was used to evaluate country-specific burden levels, and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were employed to project future trends (2021–2036). Results: From 1990 to 2021, global deaths from lead-attributable hypertensive CKD increased from 16932 to 52839 (a 212.07% rise), with age-standardized mortality rate increasing from 0.481 to 0.641 per 100,000 (EAPC=1.05). DALYs rose from nearly 470,000 to 1.17 million (a 150.98% increase), with age-standardized DALYs rate increasing from 11.825 to 13.725 per 100,000 (EAPC=0.55), with marked regional disparities. Older adults and males bore a heavier burden. The highest burdens were observed in low SDI regions, while high SDI regions had the lowest burdens, with a minor inflection point at an SDI of approximately 0.5. Frontier analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in disease burden across countries. Projection analyses indicated a potential reduction in disease burden over the next 15 years. Conclusions: Addressing lead exposure is critical to mitigating the burden of CKD due to hypertension. Targeted interventions tailored to SDI levels and lessons from frontier-line countries are recommended to achieve equitable burden reduction.
Keywords: lead exposure, CKD due to hypertension, Global burden of disease, predictiveanalysis, socio-demographic index
Received: 27 May 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Zheng, Tang, Bowen, Xu, He, Wei, Wang and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiaoyi Wang, Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province, Linhai, China
Miao Zhou, Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province, Linhai, China
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