Calculation of the dietary exposure of Chinese consumers to acephate residues using deterministic and probabilistic approaches

Abstract

This paper compares the exposure for the Chinese populations and sub-groups to acephate, a widely applied organophosphorus pesticide, using deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Acephate residue data were obtained from the national food contamination monitoring program 2001–2006, collected by multi-stage stratified sampling and with a detection rate of 3.3%. Food consumption data were gathered from the national diet and nutrition survey conducted in 2002 over three consecutive days by the 24-h recall method, and included 22,563 families or 65,886 consumers aged 2–100 years. For point estimate, it was evident that exposures were higher than the acute reference dose (ARfD) in many cases. For the probabilistic approach, the P99.9 exposures for the general population and children accounted for 11.88 and 24.15% of the ARfD, respectively, in acute intake calculations and 52.86 and 68.75%, respectively, of the acceptable daily intake (ADI) in chronic intake calculations. The exposure level of rural people was higher than urban dwellers, and vegetables contributed most to acephate intake.

Keywords:

• acephate residues
• dietary exposure
• deterministic approach
• probabilistic approach
• China

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 81072304) and the National Science and Technology Support Program of China (Grant Number 2006BAK02A01).