Use of questionnaires and biological monitoring for assessing exposure to ethylenebisdithiocarbamates and other pesticides in a multicentre European field study

Aim Define pesticide exposure in some European countries with a specific focus on ethilenebisdithiocarbamates (EBDC). Methods: 55 Bulgarian greenhouse workers, 51 Finnish potato farmers, 48 Italian vineyard workers, 42 Dutch floriculture farmers, and 52 Bulgarian zineb producers were involved. Exposure data were gained through self-administered questionnaires and measuring ETU in two spot urine samples collected, respectively, before the beginning of seasonal exposure (T0), and after 30 days, at the end of the exposure period (T30). Exposure modelling was applied to explain EBDC exposure. Results: Agriculture workers were involved in mixing and loading, application, re-entry and cleaning. The number of applied pesticides varied among job from 1 (zineb production) to 9 (potato farmers). EBDC exposure, assessed by T30 urinary ETU, was found to follow the order: zineb producers > vineyard workers ~ potato farmers >> bulb floriculture farmers with median levels of 23.0, 11.8, 8.7 and 0.9 µg/g creatinine. The application of an exposure model could not explain the observed level of urinary ETU. Conclusion Biological monitoring gave a relevant contribution in understanding real exposure, on the contrary the analysis of a self-administered questionnaire required a big effort and evidenced difficulties especially related to scarce quality of reported data. The application of exposure model resulted to be more suitable to describe standardized situation rather than real life.