The inadvertent and dermal conceptual model

Today’s post comes from guest author from Jon Gelman, LLC – Attorney at Law.

A recently published a paper about the inadvertent ingestion of chemicals at work from contact between the mouth and contaminated hands or objects highlights how dangerous exposure could occur at work.  The inadvertent ingestion is a potentially significant source of occupational exposure, and there needs to be a greater focus on assessment of risks from hand-to-mouth contacts and more done to control such risks.

“The latest research is part of a project to develop a predictive model to estimate inadvertent ingestion exposure. To better understand this route of exposure, we developed a new integrated conceptual model for dermal and inadvertent ingestion. It consists of eight compartments (source, air, surface contaminant layer, outer clothing contaminant layer, inner clothing contaminant layer, hands and arms layer, perioral layer, and oral cavity) and nine mass transport processes (emission, deposition, resuspension or evaporation, transfer, removal, redistribution, decontamination, penetration and/or permeation, and swallowing) that describe event-based movement of substances between compartments (e.g. emission, deposition, etc.). We plan to use the conceptual model to guide the development of predictive exposure models for both the dermal and the inadvertent ingestion pathways.”

Gorman Ng M, Semple S, W Cherrie J, et al. The Relationship Between Inadvertent Ingestion and Dermal Exposure Pathways: A New Integrated Conceptual Model and a Database of Dermal and Oral Transfer Efficiencies. Ann Occup Hyg Published Online First: 23 July 2012. doi:10.1093/annhyg/mes041

Cherrie JW, Semple S, Christopher Y, et al. How important is inadvertent ingestion of hazardous substances at work?Ann Occup Hyg 2006;50:693–704.

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