... Specifically, there were 7 studies conducted in Europe [70,71,74,76,80,85,88], 5 in North America [73,79,83,86,87], 9 in Asia [65][66][67]72,77,78,81,82,84], and 4 in Africa [68,69,75,89]. The meta-analysis of Hg levels in whole blood comprised 15 studies [78,86,[90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103], with 2 conducted in Europe [85,92], 5 in North America [91,95,96,98,99], 1 in Central America [97], 5 in Asia [77,91,93,100,101], and 2 in Africa [94,102]. For plasma Hg levels, 6 studies were incorporated into the metaanalysis [62,92,[103][104][105][106], with 2 originating from Europe [92,106], 2 from Asia [62,105], and 2 from Africa [103,104]. ...