Estimating the Jordanian population dietary exposure to pesticides residues: An exploratory deterministic approach

The Jordanian population's exposure to pesticides may have never been estimated. This study uses a deterministic approach as a screening method to determine the population's likelihood of daily dietary exposure to pesticide residues and identify pesticides that require further investigation. We investigated the data from surveillance programs to assess pesticide contamination in food. We also obtained data about the population's estimated consumption of different food items. The daily exposure to pesticide residues through food was estimated with two scenarios (Lu et al., 2006): the lower bound (LB) scenario and (Luo and Zhang, 2009) the upper bound (UB) scenario. The data provided the concentration of pesticides in 8085 food samples. In 15.7% of the samples, 134 pesticides were identified. The levels of quantified pesticides exceeded MRL in 41.7% of the samples. Under the LB, mean estimated daily exposures were higher than the acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) for 27 investigated residues. Using the UB scenario, which tends to overestimate exposure, the mean estimated daily exposures were above the ADIs for 111 residues. The study concludes that the population's dietary exposure to pesticide residues is noteworthy and provides a list of pesticides that could be consumed at levels higher than the relevant ADI value and thus require further assessment.