AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO DIETARY EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

The method of dietary exposure assessment currently used by the Enviro nmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Dietary Residue Evaluation System (DRES), combines a consumption distribution derived from the United S tates Department of Agriculture (USDA) 1977-1978 Nationwide Food Consu mption Survey (NFCS) with a single estimate of residue level. The Nati onal Academy of Sciences(1) recommended that EPA incorporate both the distribution of residues and the distribution of consumption into thei r exposure assessment methodology and proposed using a Monte Carlo app roach. This paper presents an alternative method, the Joint Distributi onal Analysis (JDA), that combines the consumption and residue distrib utions, without relying on random sampling or fitting theoretical dist ributions like the Monte Carlo method. This method permits simultaneou s analysis of the entire diet, including assessing exposure from resid ues in different foods.