QUANTIFYING VIDEOTAPED ACTIVITY PATTERNS - VIDEO TRANSLATION SOFTWAREAND TRAINING METHODOLOGIES

Questionnaires and diaries, the current methods of human activity data collection, do not accurately capture the detail necessary to quantif y exposure incurred through the dermal and non-dietary ingestion route s. Stanford University's Environmental Engineering and Science Program has del eloped methodologies and software (VideoTraq) for training vi deo translators, determining inter-observer reliability, and translati ng videotaped micro-activity patterns into computer text files. VideoT raq output files contain duration, in seconds,for each combination of location, activity, and object contacted corresponding to the sequenti al micro-activities of a videotaped subject's contact boundary (e.g., left hand, right hand, mouth). Such output allows for detailed analyse s of micro-activity data, including contact frequency and duration. Wh en coupled with environmental concentrations, these data will allow fo r more accurate exposure assessments, particularly for the dermal and non-dietary ingestion exposure routes.