Ecological and human health risk assessment require consideration of exposure resulting from the use of indoor and outdoor residential pesticide products. There are multiple factors impacting the likelihood and magnitude of pesticide exposure resulting from these product uses, including the amount of product used, the use sites treated, the frequency of applications, the timing of applications, and for some types of exposure assessments, the percentage of households applying the products of interest. Data required to understand these aspects of residential pesticide data are limited, with the California Pesticide Use Report (PUR) database providing one of the only publicly accessible data sources concerning residential pesticide use. One limitation of the PUR is that it does not include homeowner products, representing only the professionally applied products. The Residential Exposure Joint Venture (REJV) database was compiled in 2014 to help close this data gap of homeowner pesticide usage and use practices.  The REJV database represents a national survey of nearly 52,000 households across the United States, each of which answered general questions regarding their use of different classes of indoor and outdoor pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides) and whether applications on their property were made by themselves or a professional. For a subset of nearly 10,000 households, detailed monthly journals were kept of pesticide products used by the home, some households completing a full one-year period. This journal recorded specific locations where each pesticide application occurred for both indoor (e.g., kitchen, bath, and cupboards/baseboards) and outdoor uses (e.g., entire lawn, house exterior, and vegetable garden), along with the method of application, and an estimate of how much product was used within each month. Active ingredient percentages associated with each product registration allowed estimations of mass applied. This presentation provides examples of how to use the REJV database to calculate estimates of the fraction of households applying categories of active ingredients, the mass of active ingredients applied by households per application event and annually, the distribution of use sites treated (indoor and outdoor sites), and treated areas.  This residential pesticide use quantification approach can provide important inputs to exposure model scenarios to better inform ecological and human health risk assessments.

Quantification of residential pesticide usage and application practices through analysis of the residential exposure joint venture database

ACS Fall 2021

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