Dermal exposure assessment in occupational epidemiologic research

Development of a questionnaire to assess worker knowledge, attitudes and perceptions underlying dermal exposure

“…The central focus of this paper was to describe results obtained from the development and testing of the KAP questionnaire, including the use of open-ended questions to spur discussion, and from the pretesting of the questionnaire. Survey of worker dermal knowledge, attitudes and perceptions The KAP questionnaire was developed systematically with reliance on the relevant dermal literature (2,4,10,29,30), industrial hygiene and expert judgment, and, ultimately, through focus groups reflecting the experience of workers. The quality and utility of the questionnaire were evaluated based on standard criteria of content and face validity, as well as on internal reliability (24,27).…”

“…Use of observational exposure surveys is a well-established method in the epidemiology and exposure literature on the assessment of inhalation and dermal exposures (29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35). Psychosocial components of behavior have been examined previously in the field of industrial hygiene to address issues such as worker pesticide exposure and worker low-back pain (11,13,17).…”

Reliability of a semi-quantitative method for dermal exposure assessment (DREAM)

“…Semi-quantitative exposure assessment has generally aimed at assessing inhalation exposures and hardly at assessing dermal exposures (Kromhout et al, 1987;Hertzman et al, 1988;Hawkins and Evans, 1989;Teschke et al, 1989;Post et al, 1991;de Cock et al, 1996; Siematycki et al, 1997; Benke et al, 1997;Cherrie and Schneider, 1999;Vermeulen et al, 2002;Walker et al, 2003). Even for contaminants for which dermal exposure is known to contribute significantly to internal dose (e.g., pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)), exposure assessment is often directed to inhalation exposures, resulting in inaccurate and imprecise exposure estimates (Vermeulen et al, 2002).…”

“…Even for contaminants for which dermal exposure is known to contribute significantly to internal dose (e.g., pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)), exposure assessment is often directed to inhalation exposures, resulting in inaccurate and imprecise exposure estimates (Vermeulen et al, 2002).…”

Improving exposure assessment requires measurements and modeling

“…Thus expert assessment will have a role to play in this area in the coming years. Vermeulen et al (1) urge that attempts be made to document and validate expert assessors' quantitative dermal exposure estimates. There should be no black boxes.…”