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EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES BY MEDIUM AND ROUTE: THE 90TH PERCENTILE AND RELATED UNCERTAINTIES
Citation:
Moschandreas, D. J., H. Ari, S. Karuchit, Y. Kim, M. D. Lebowitz, M. K. O'Rourke, S. M. Gordon, AND G L. Robertson. EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES BY MEDIUM AND ROUTE: THE 90TH PERCENTILE AND RELATED UNCERTAINTIES. Presented at ISEA 2000 Exposure Analysis in the 21st Century: Integrating Science, Policy and Quality of Life, Monterey Peninsula, CA, October 24-27, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
The primary objective of the NAFTA Border study was to determine if the population of the U.S./Mexico Border area of Arizona are more highly exposed to environmental contaminants than the residents of the state of Arizona as a whole. The NAFTA Border Study will also demonstrate the feasibility of using these measurement processes in future multimedia-multipathway studies along the U.S./Mexico Border.
Description:
This study investigates distributions of exposure to chlorpyrifos and diazinon using the database generated in the state of Arizona by the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey (NHEXAS-AZ). Exposure to pesticide and associated uncertainties are estimated using probabilistic methods with the Monte Carlo simulations. The 90th percentile of inhalation, dietary ingestion, dermal and non-dietary ingestion exposure to chlorpyrifos and diazinon of the Arizona population were estimated. Questions associated with the uncertainty of exposure estimates for the two pesticides are investigated using pertinent segments of the NHEXAS-AZ study database. Probabilistic models are also used to formulate distributions of exposures to each of the two pesticides, for several sub-population groups. Parameter uncertainties associated with the 90th and other percentiles of population and sub-population groups are addressed in this study. All subjects exposed to levels above the 90th percentile of inhalation exposure value level live in dwellings with over 50 percent floor areas covered by carpets. Inhalation exposure above or below the 90th percentile value is also related to subject education. The relative uncertainty of the 90th percentile of dermal exposure is larger than corresponding uncertainties for inhalation, dietary ingestion, and non-dietary exposure.
The U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development funded this research. The abstract was reviewed and approved. The presentation has not been reviewed.