US EPA

Children are often more heavily exposed to environmental toxicants than adults. They consume more food and water and have higher inhalation rates per pound of body weight than adults. Young children play close to the ground and come into contact with contaminated soil outdoors and with contaminated dust on surfaces and carpets indoors. As another example, exposure to chemicals in breast milk affects infants and young children.

Although NCEA has published the Exposure Factors Handbook in 1997 (EPA/600/P-95/002Fa-c), which includes exposure factors and related data on both adults and children, the EPA Program Offices identified the need to consolidate all child exposure data into one document. The goal of the Child-Specific Exposure Factors Handbook is to fulfill this need. The document provides a summary of the available and up-to-date statistical data on various factors assessing child exposures. These factors include drinking water consumption, soil ingestion, inhalation rates, dermal factors including skin area and soil adherence factors, consumption of fruits and vegetables, fish, meats, dairy products, homegrown foods, breast milk, activity patterns, body weight, consumer products and life expectancy.

An interim Final report was published in 2002. The purpose of this task is to update the Child-Specific Handbook published in 2002 with new Agency guidance on age groups and add new data.

In an effort to keep the handbook up-to-date, NCEA will incorporate new data as they become available in the published literature. Please submit comments, recommendations, suggested revisions, and corrections to Jacqueline Moya.