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Organophosphorous pesticide breakdown products in house dust and children's urine

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 22, pages 559–568 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Human exposure to preformed dialkylphosphates (DAPs) in food or the environment may affect the reliability of DAP urinary metabolites as biomarkers of organophosphate (OP) pesticide exposure. We conducted a study to investigate the presence of DAPs in indoor residential environments and their association with children's urinary DAP levels. We collected dust samples from homes in farmworker and urban communities (40 homes total, n=79 samples) and up to two urine samples from resident children ages 3–6 years. We measured six DAPs in all samples and eight DAP-devolving OP pesticides in a subset of dust samples (n=54). DAPs were detected in dust with diethylphosphate (DEP) being the most frequently detected (≥60%); detection frequencies for other DAPs were ≤50%. DEP dust concentrations did not significantly differ between communities, nor were concentrations significantly correlated with concentrations of chlorpyrifos and diazinon, the most frequently detected diethyl-OP pesticides (Spearman ρ=−0.41 to 0.38, P>0.05). Detection of DEP, chlorpyrifos, or diazinon, was not associated with DEP and/or DEP+diethylthiophosphate detection in urine (Kappa coefficients=−0.33 to 0.16). Finally, estimated non-dietary ingestion intake from DEP in dust was found to be ≤5% of the dose calculated from DEP levels in urine, suggesting that ingestion of dust is not a significant source of DAPs in urine if they are excreted unchanged.

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Abbreviations

CDC:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

DAP:

dialkylphosphate

DE:

diethyl

DEP:

diethylphosphate

DEDTP:

diethyldithiophosphate

DETP:

diethylthiophosphate

DF:

detection frequency

DM:

dimethyl

DMP:

dimethylphosphate

DMDTP:

dimethyldithiophosphate

DMTP:

dimethylthiophosphate

EPA:

Environmental Protection Agency

GC-MS/MS:

gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

LOD:

limits of detection

OP:

organophosphate

QC:

quality control

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by EPA (RD 83171001) and NIEHS (PO1 ES009605). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the EPA, NIEHS, or other funders. Additional support was provided by an EPA STAR Doctoral Fellowship (F5D30812), the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS), and the Center for Latino Policy Research at the University of California at Berkeley. We thank the CHAMACOS staff, community partners including Drs. John Pescetti and Claire Horton at Clinica de la Raza for their support in recruitment efforts, our study participants, Dr. Do-Gyun Kim and Carolina Fernandez from the Pesticide Toxicology Laboratory at the CDC for their assistance with urine sample analysis, and Dr. Rosana Weldon for editorial comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Environmental Research and Children's Health, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá, Asa Bradman, Rosemary Castorina, Thomas E McKone & Brenda Eskenazi

  2. EPA STAR Fellow, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA

    Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá

  3. National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Kimberly Smith, Gayanga Weerasekera & Martins Odetokun

  4. Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dana Boyd Barr

  5. Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    Marcia Nishioka

  6. Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Alan E Hubbard

  7. Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Mark Nicas & S Katharine Hammond

  8. Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA

    Thomas E McKone

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  1. Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá
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  2. Asa Bradman
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Correspondence to Asa Bradman.

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Quirós-Alcalá, L., Bradman, A., Smith, K. et al. Organophosphorous pesticide breakdown products in house dust and children's urine. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 22, 559–568 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2012.46

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