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FEASIBILITY OF USING THE MACROACTIVITY APPROACH TO ASSESS CHILDREN'S DERMAL EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES
Citation:
CohenHubal, E A., G G. Akland, K W. Leovic, J. H. Raymer, AND L S. Sheldon. FEASIBILITY OF USING THE MACROACTIVITY APPROACH TO ASSESS CHILDREN'S DERMAL EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES. Presented at SOEH International Conference of Pesticide Exposure and Health, Bethesda, MA, December 17-21, 2001.
Impact/Purpose:
1. To identify those pesticides, pathways, and activities that represent the highest potential exposures to children;
2. To determine the factors that influence pesticide exposures to children;
3. To develop methods for measuring multimedia exposures to children, including methods that account for important activities that take place in home, school, and day care settings;
4. To generate data on multimedia pesticide concentrations, pesticide biomarkers, and exposure factors that can be used as inputs to aggregate exposure models for children.
Description:
Results derived from an initial assessment of critical exposure pathways for children indicate that dermal contact may result in high residential exposures to pesticides. However, data on children's exposures and activities are insufficient to support quantitative assessments that do not rely heavily on major default assumptions as substitutes for missing information. In addition, approaches for measuring and assessing dermal exposure in a residential setting have not been evaluated. In the macroactivity approach, dermal exposure is estimated using empirically-derived transfer coefficients. This approach was developed to assess occupational exposure in an agricultural setting. To assess the feasibility of using the macroactivity approach for assessing children's exposure to pesticides, a screening-level study was conducted with young children in a daycare center where a known pesticide application had occurred. Four or five children from each of two different age groups were monitored for short time periods while involved in selected activities (e.g., storytime, playtime indoors). To measure dermal loading or exposure, the children were clothed in full-body dosimeters. To measure the pesticide concentration in the exposure medium, transferable residues were sampled in the areas where the children spent time during each monitoring event. In addition, videotaping was conducted to verify the children's activity levels and location during exposure monitoring. The dermal loading and transferable residue measurements were then used to calculate dermal transfer coefficients for each monitoring event. The results of this study demonstrate the variability of dermal loading (and associated transfer coefficients) for children of a given age group performing varying activities. In addition, these data will be used to evaluate the default assumptions currently used by USEPA's Office of Pesticide Programs to assess children's residential exposure to pesticides.
This work has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under contract no. 68-D-99-012 to Research Triangle Institute. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication.