November 2024 – The IMPRESS project is completed and this website will no longer be updated

Welcome to our website for the IMPRESS project
Improving exposure assessment methodologies for epidemiological studies on pesticides

Study aims and objectives

Our study aims to better understand the performance of existing methods of occupational exposure assessment to pesticides used in epidemiological studies, and to use this information to recommend improvements in scientific practice for the future.
This is to be achieved by assessing the reliability and external validity of the surrogate measures used to assign exposure within individuals or groups of individuals, which are frequently based on self-reported data on exposure determinants like spraying methods and frequency of spraying or job/crop exposure matrices. In addition we will evaluate the size and effects of recall bias on misclassification of exposure to pesticides and associated health effects. As part of these evaluations, the project team will use existing and newly collected (biological) monitoring data from several existing epidemiological studies and historical records across various populations in Europe and elsewhere.  The performance of the various exposure assessment methods will be compared and contrasted within existing epidemiological studies.

The main outcomes of the study will be the validation of selected semi-quantitative individual-based exposure assessment method against measured levels of urinary pesticide metabolites in a broad range of settings, and the comparison of the reliability and performance of several grouped- and individual-based exposure assessment methods when used to estimate historical exposures using the same occupational histories.