Measuring potential exposure to environmental pollutants: time spent with soil and time spent outdoors

In 1994-1995, the Electric Power Resource Institute (EPRI) undertook a majo r national survey of time in microenvironments with 1200 respondents aged 1 8 and older. It did so using a methodology that minimized the problems of r espondent recall and reporting by the use of a "time diary," in which surve y respondents reported in detail about their actual activities "yesterday" including time spent outdoors. In addition, respondents were asked question s about the extent of contact with soil they had on that day. Significant p roportions (20%) of the American public reported coming in direct contact w ith soil on a typical day and those who did come in contact were exposed fo r about 1.7 h per day; some 6% of the public reported being exposed for mor e than 2 h on the day in question, mainly by hand (although 3% of responden ts reported soil contact with their head or face). As expected, men reporte d far more soil contact than women; surprisingly few consistent differences were found by age, or by marital status, parental status or employment sta tus. Contrary to expectations, higher contact was not reported by minoritie s, or by less educated or less affluent respondents. Moreover, these patter ns generally remained unchanged alter adjustment for other demographic pred ictors. More as expected, higher exposure was reported in the Spring months , on weekends, and in rural areas and in the South and West regions of the country, patterns again largely unaffected by multivariate controls for oth er predictors. In general, while certain predictors of soil exposure were m uch the same for time spent outdoors, there were some notable exceptions.