The impact of demographic factors, behaviors and environmental exposure to mercury content in the hair of the population living in the region of Lodz (central Poland)

•Influence of various factors on mercury content in human hair was investigated.•Mercury content in human hair samples was determined by Mercury Analyzer MA 3000.•Differences were observed for the content of Hg as the impact of sex and age.•Differences were observed for the content of Hg as the impact of fish consumption.

The aim of this work was to access the influence of different factors such as sex, age, fish consumption, hair dyeing or smoking habit on the content of mercury in human hair samples. The research was carried on 444 samples (102 males and 342 females) collected from the population of people living in the region of Lodz (central Poland). The content of mercury in human hair samples was determined using the Mercury Analyzer MA 3000 (Nippon Instruments, Japan). The obtained results were elaborated using Statistica ver. 10.0 software. The mean value of mercury in investigated human hair samples was found to be 0.174 ± 0.137 mg/kg. We observed the statistically significant correlations (p < 0.05) between the content of Hg in hair of the studied population and factors such as gender, age, and fish consumption. However, no statistically significant differences were found in relation to cosmetic treatment such as hair dyeing or smoking.