Latex Rubber Gloves as a Sampling Dosimeter Using a Novel Surrogate Sampling Device

Abstract

Pesticide exposure during harvesting of crops occurs primarily to the workers’ hands. When harvesters wear latex rubber gloves for personal safety and hygiene harvesting reasons, gloves accumulate pesticide residues. Hence, characterization of the gloves’ properties may be useful for pesticide exposure assessments. Controlled field studies were conducted using latex rubber gloves to define the factors that influence the transfer of pesticides to the glove and that would affect their use as a residue monitoring device. A novel sampling device called the Brinkman Contact Transfer Unit (BCTU) was constructed to study the glove characteristics and residue transfer and accumulation under controlled conditions on turf. The effectiveness of latex rubber gloves as sampling dosimeters was evaluated by measuring the transferable pesticide residues as a function of time. The validation of latex rubber gloves as a residue sampling dosimeter was performed by comparing pesticide transfer and dissipation from the gloves, with the turf transferable residues sampled using the validated California (CA) Roller, a standard measure of residue transfer. The observed correlation (Pearson’s correlation coefficient R²) between the two methods was .84 for malathion and .96 for fenpropathrin, indicating that the BCTU is a useful, reliable surrogate tool for studying available residue transfer to latex rubber gloves under experimental conditions. Perhaps more importantly, these data demonstrate that latex gloves worn by workers may be useful quantifiable matrices for measuring pesticide exposure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the University of California Riverside (UCR) Agricultural Operations Turfgrass Research Project members, who have been very supportive of our research. Dan Brinkman devoted his time and creative thinking to construct the Brinkman Contact Transfer Unit (BCTU), which has been critical for our research. David Kleckner, licensed pest control applicator at UCR, has also contributed and assisted this research.