“Good Epidemiology Practice” Guidelines for Pesticide Exposure Assessment

Julie E. Goodman, Robyn L. Prueitt, Paolo Boffetta, Crispin Halsall and Andrew Sweetman
Additional contact information
Julie E. Goodman: Gradient, One Beacon Street, 17th Floor, Boston, MA 02108, USA
Robyn L. Prueitt: Gradient, 600 Stewart Street, Suite 1900, Seattle, WA 98101, USA
Paolo Boffetta: Stony Brook Cancer Center, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
Crispin Halsall: Lancaster Environment Center, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK
Andrew Sweetman: Lancaster Environment Center, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 14, 1-15

Abstract: Both toxicology and epidemiology are used to inform hazard and risk assessment in regulatory settings, particularly for pesticides. While toxicology studies involve controlled, quantifiable exposures that are often administered according to standardized protocols, estimating exposure in observational epidemiology studies is challenging, and there is no established guidance for doing so. However, there are several frameworks for evaluating the quality of published epidemiology studies. We previously developed a preliminary list of methodology and reporting standards for epidemiology studies, called Good Epidemiology Practice (GEP) guidelines, based on a critical review of standardized toxicology protocols and available frameworks for evaluating epidemiology study quality. We determined that exposure characterization is one of the most critical areas for which standards are needed. Here, we propose GEP guidelines for pesticide exposure assessment based on the source of exposure data (i.e., biomonitoring and environmental samples, questionnaire/interview/expert record review, and dietary exposures based on measurements of residues in food and food consumption). It is expected that these GEP guidelines will facilitate the conduct of higher-quality epidemiology studies that can be used as a basis for more scientifically sound regulatory risk assessment and policy making.

Keywords: epidemiology; methodology; exposure assessment; pesticides (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/5114/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/5114/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:5114-:d:385047

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().