[Neutron activation analysis of human hair--interrelation of hair constituents (author's transl)]

In an attempt to study the availability and limitation of analytical data of human hair as an indicator of environmental pollution and/or of human health effect, concentrations of elements in 202 scalp hair samples collected from local population in the Tokyo Metropolitan area were determined by instrumental neutron activation analysis. The correlation coefficients between concentrations of 13 elements in each sex and in each age group were calculated and discussed. There were significant correlations between some pairs of elements, i.e. Na-K, Br-Cl, Ca-Zn and Ca-Mg, in all five age classes in both of male and female, indicating that the correlations were consistent. Ca was observed to be reversely correlated with Cl. No significant correlation was apparent between Hg and Se, when the correlation coefficient was calculated using logarithmic converted concentration data.