School of Public Health, College of Public Health and Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
School of Public Health, College of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2018 Mar;28(2):182-192. doi: 10.1038/jes.2016.87. Epub 2017 Jan 25.
Non-dietary ingestion is an important exposure pathway for children owing to their frequent hand-to-mouth and object-to-mouth activities involving soil and dust contacts. We used videotaping and the computer-based translating methods to quantify the mouthing activity information for 24 children ages 3 to <6 years old living in Taiwan. We also reviewed the entire mouthing activity data collected during the project to determine the lesser studied information on hand surface areas mouthed by children ages <6 years old. The median indoor hand-to-mouth and object-to-mouth frequencies were found to be 10 and 4.3 contacts/h, respectively. Hand-to-mouth and object-to-mouth contact frequencies used in exposure assessments for children ages 3 to <6 years old in this study were similar to the recommended values reported in United States. Exposure Factors Handbook for comparable age US children. The average fractions of the hand area mouthed for children 6 to <12 months, 1 to <2 years, 2 to <3 years, and 3 to <6 years old were 0.12, 0.12, 0.13, and 0.09, respectively. The fraction of hand area mouthed by children was found to be significantly and negatively correlated with their age. About half of the total hand-to-mouth contact events involved immersion of part of a hand or a finger into the mouth. The findings from this study extend the available mouthing activity information for 3 to <6 years old children and also provide new data for an Asian country, allowing comparison of results with western values collected mostly in the United States.
非饮食性摄入是儿童暴露的重要途径，因为他们经常将手和物体放入口中，包括接触土壤和灰尘。我们使用录像和基于计算机的翻译方法来量化 24 名 3 至<6 岁的台湾儿童的口部活动信息。我们还回顾了项目中收集的所有口部活动数据，以确定研究较少的<6 岁儿童口部触及的手部表面面积信息。研究发现，室内手至口和物至口的中位数频率分别为 10 次和 4.3 次/小时。本研究中用于评估 3 至<6 岁儿童的手至口和物至口接触频率与美国推荐值相似。可与年龄相当的美国儿童的暴露因素手册。6 至<12 个月、1 至<2 岁、2 至<3 岁和 3 至<6 岁儿童口部触及的手部面积平均分数分别为 0.12、0.12、0.13 和 0.09。儿童口部触及的手部面积分数与年龄呈显著负相关。大约一半的手至口接触事件涉及将一只手或一根手指的一部分浸入口中。本研究的结果扩展了 3 至<6 岁儿童可用的口部活动信息，并为亚洲国家提供了新的数据，允许与主要在美国收集的西方数据进行比较。
