Health risk assessment of mercury exposure for the sensitive populations living along the Di´Er Songhua River region

The Di´er Songhua River is an important tributary of the Songhua River, which originates from Tianchi Lake in the Changbai Mountains and flows through central Jilin Province in northeast China. In the early sixties of last century, this river became one of the typical water bodies with mercury polluted river, due to its discharge of wastewater containing mercury. In order to investigate whether there were still human health risk from mercury exposure for the sensitive subpopulations living in the Di´er Songhua River region, a number of 155 hair samples were collected from the children aged of 0 to 15 and the women of childbearing age aged from 16 to 45, and the hair total mercury concentrations were detected by the methods of CVAAS. The average hair total mercury concentrations of child was 0.99 mg/kg with the range of 0.16-14.97 mg/kg. The mean hair mercury value of the women of childbearing age was 2.43 mg/kg with the range of 0.07 92.13 mg/kg. There were 7.69% of women of childbearing age with their high hair mercury concentrations exceeded 2.8 mg/kg, whose frequency of paraesthesia was 50%. There were 7.69% of women of childbearing age with their high hair mercury concentrations exceeded 3.8 mg/kg, whose frequency of comprehensive nervous system influence was 5%. There were 1.91% of children with their high hair mercury concentrations exceeded 2.8 mg/kg, whose frequency of paraesthesia was 50% There were 0.02% of children with their high hair mercury concentrations exceeded 3.8 mg/kg, whose frequency of comprehensive nervous system influence was 5%.