Nondietary ingestion of pesticides by children in an agricultural community on the US/Mexico border: Preliminary results

An environmental measurement and correlation study of nondietary ingestion of pesticides was carried out in a colonia in south Texas. The purpose of the study was to evaluate young children's exposure to environmental levels of organophosphate (OP) pesticides in the household. Samples were coll...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 42 - 50
Main Authors:	Shalat, Stuart L, Donnelly, Kirby C, Freeman, Natalie C G, Calvin, James A, Ramesh, Sowmya, Jimenez, Marta, Black, Kathleen, Coutinho, Catriona, Needham, Larry L, Barr, Dana B, Ramirez, Juan
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England Nature Publishing Group 01-01-2003
Subjects:	Administration, Cutaneous Agrarian society Agrochemicals Air Pollution, Indoor - analysis Bioassays Biological Assay Biomarkers - analysis Child, Preschool Children Children & youth Confidence intervals Creatinine Dust Environmental Exposure Epidemiology Exposure Female Hand Hands Hispanic Americans Humans Infant Ingestion Insecticides - analysis Insecticides - metabolism Insecticides - urine Male Mean Median (statistics) Metabolites Multivariate analysis Organophosphates Organophosphorus Compounds Parameter estimation Pesticides Regression analysis Risk Assessment Spring Statistical analysis Statistical methods Summer Surface area Texas Urine Texas Mexico USA, Texas
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Summary:	An environmental measurement and correlation study of nondietary ingestion of pesticides was carried out in a colonia in south Texas. The purpose of the study was to evaluate young children's exposure to environmental levels of organophosphate (OP) pesticides in the household. Samples were collected to measure levels of OP pesticides in housedust and on children's hands. These, in turn, were compared to levels of OP pesticide metabolites in urine. A total of 52 children, 25 boys and 27 girls, participated in the spring and summer of 2000. The children were 7-53 months of age at the time of recruitment. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were carried out using SAS statistical software. Seventy-six percent of housedust samples and 50% of hand rinse samples contained OP pesticides. All urine samples had at least one metabolite and over 95% had at least two metabolites above the limit of detection (LOD). Total OP loadings in the housedust ranged from nondetectable (nd) to 78.03 nmol/100 cm(2) (mean=0.15 nmol/100 cm(2); median=0.07 nmol/100 cm(2)); total OP loadings on the children's hands ranged from nd to 13.40 nmol/100 cm(2) (mean=1.21 nmol/100 cm(2); median=1.41 nmol/100 cm(2)), and creatinine corrected urinary levels (nmol/mol creatinine) of total OP metabolites ranged from 3.2 to 257 nmol/mol creatinine (mean=42.6; median 27.4 nmol/mol creatinine). Urinary metabolites were inversely associated with the age of the child (in months) with the parameter estimate (pe)=-2.11, P=0.0070, and 95% confidence interval -3.60 to -0.61. The multivariate analysis observed a weak association between concentrations of OP pesticides in housedust, loadings in housedust, and concentration on hands, hand surface area, and urinary levels of OP metabolites. However, hand loadings of OP pesticides were more strongly associated (r(2)=0.28; P=0.0156) with urinary levels of OP metabolites (pe=6.39; 95% CI 0.98-11.80). This study's preliminary findings suggest that surface loadings of pesticides, on hands, are more highly correlated with urinary bioassays and, therefore, may be more useful for estimation of exposure in epidemiologic studies than levels of pesticides in housedust.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23
ISSN:	1053-4245 1559-0631 1476-5381 1559-064X
DOI:	10.1038/sj.jea.7500249