You are here:
Developing a rich definition of the person/residence to support models of consumer product usage
Citation:
Price, P., K. Dionisio, H. HUBBARD, AND G. Glen. Developing a rich definition of the person/residence to support models of consumer product usage. SOT Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, March 11 - 16, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
The abstract presents work on the Human Exposure Model which is a project under Chemical Safety for Sustainability program. The presentation will allow NERL to communicate its research and to solicit feedback from experts in the field of risk assessment.
Description:
Characterizing interindividual variation in combined chemical exposures from the use of consumer products is a challenge because of the complexity of these exposures. There are many products commercially available and individuals use combinations of products dictated by their specific needs. Product use varies with an individual’s demographics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, family structure, and type of residence). Exposures also occur as a result of other individuals using products in the home (e.g., painting a room exposes all individuals in a home and washing a child exposes both child and adult). Finally, characterizing applied and internal doses requires data on the physiology and behaviors of the individual. The U.S. EPA is developing probabilistic methods of modeling variation in exposure-relevant characteristics of individuals, their residences, and their families. The goal of this effort is the generation of synthetic populations whose characteristics can be used to predict chemical doses from the use of consumer products. A database of population demographics is created by linking data from the U.S. Census with data from U.S. housing surveys. Survey data are linked by matching records based on similarities in the characteristics correlated with the parameters of interest. The demographics are also combined with rules controlling product usage to refine the estimates of the products that individuals in a household may use (e.g., only adults with a young child use a baby shampoo to wash the baby and only individuals in homes with yards would use lawn fertilizer). The temporal patterns of “product use events” and other exposure-related behaviors for each person in the household are modeled using Agent Based Models. Data on physiology are generated by linking Census data to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey measurement data and modeled physiological parameter values. The information in the final database includes: physiology (body weight, skin surface area, breathing rate, cardiac output, blood volume, and volumes for body compartments and organs); characteristics of the individual’s residence (region of the U.S., urban or rural, size of property, size of home, nature of home (single or multifamily), number and types of rooms, and room volumes; family structures (age and gender of other individuals living with the modeled individual); and temporal patterns of product usage by the individual and others in the home.
