Permethrin is one of the most widely used active ingredients in spray-type home insecticides. However, indoor permethrin exposure resulting from the use of home insecticides is not well-characterized, as measured permethrin concentrations in indoor environmental and biological media with a known application rate are scarce. We conducted an intervention study with four participants for seven days. We conducted personal air monitoring and collected 24-h urine samples in which we quantified time-weighted average (TWA) permethrin concentrations in indoor air (Cair ) and urinary concentrations of two permethrin metabolites, 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) and cis/trans-3-(2,2-dichlorovinyl)-2,2-dimethylcyclopropane carboxylic acid (cis/trans-DCCA). We also estimated (1) TWA Cair using a simple indoor air model and (2) urinary excreted (UE) mass using a simple excretion model with both estimated and measured TWA Cair . Measurements of TWA Cair from personal air monitoring were lower than those estimated from the indoor model by a factor of 2.9 to 49.4. The ratio of estimated to measured UE mass ranged 3.5-18.2 when using estimated TWA Cair and 1.1-2.9 when using measured TWA Cair . Smaller ratios in estimating internal permethrin exposure from personal air monitoring suggest that personal air monitoring could reduce uncertainties in permethrin exposure assessment resulting from the use of spray-type insecticides.
Keywords: air monitoring; exposure modeling; home insecticide; indoor air modeling; intervention study; permethrin.
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